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Conference Tourney Attendance

Re: Conference Tourney Attendance

5hole said:
Yeah, disappointing but hardly surprising. Most of those in the stands were Niagara fans, only a small number of Canisius fans. I did not see many MC fans at the first game or any UConn but I left after Game 1 with a severe case of depression and needing to drown my sorrows.
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Well, when RIT (who misses the tourney) is the leader in attendance, at 2,300 a game, and the four who make it average 1,181, 872, 862 and 726, exactly what kind of attendance did folks expect?

chickod said:
Did you post that last year? I could have sworn you told that story before (or maybe someone else told the same story). I don't know who that guy was - we have seafood everywhere in New England (and here's a secret - usually it's frozen anyway so even if you're not right on the coast it hardly matters). Now, finding a GOOD one may be another story... :D
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I've forgotten more about what I remember than what I remember about what I've forgotten. Or something like that...

beaverhockeyfan said:
Or when we mentioned at the bar that we were considering going to Worcester to watch North Dakota play and we didn't have a hotel room booked over there, we were just going to drive over and back to our hotel near UMass. They thought we were nuts because it was like an hour and a half one way.

Or the fact that we had to drive four hours to get to our nearest major airport, while they had something like seven within four hours......

Ahhh, those spoiled Eastern folk!!!!
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Not to mention that one of us idiots woke up and drove to Vermont - just for lemonade!
 
Re: Conference Tourney Attendance

moose97 said:
Um, RIT? Niagara is 90 miles away. Canisius (who won it) is 70 miles away...



My funny east coast road trip story - went to the regional at UMass in 2005, checked into the hotel and asked the guy where a good seafood restaurant was and he replied, "we're not near the ocean - that's like a whole 2-3 hours away! Why would we have a seafood place?"
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You went to that regional, and THAT was your worst memory? Good for you ;-)
 
Re: Conference Tourney Attendance

moose97 said:
ECAECHL (Boardwalk Hall - Atlantic City, NJ):

Semi's
4pm Brown vs. Quinnipiac - 3,145
7:30 pm Union vs. Yale - 3,145
3rd Place
4pm Yale vs. Quinnipiac - 4,017
Final
7pm Brown vs. Union - 4,017
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Ha! Those numbers are a joke. If both days drew a total of 3,000 overall, it was a lot. Boardwalk Hall was empty for all 4 games. The 3 year experiment in AC was a disaster, which is a shame because the kids on the ice deserve better in a championship weekend. Next year in Lake Placid should be much better (they certainly can't do any worse than AC).
 
Re: Conference Tourney Attendance

MarkEagleUSA said:
Ha! Those numbers are a joke. If both days drew a total of 3,000 overall, it was a lot. Boardwalk Hall was empty for all 4 games. The 3 year experiment in AC was a disaster, which is a shame because the kids on the ice deserve better in a championship weekend. Next year in Lake Placid should be much better (they certainly can't do any worse than AC).
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I think Lake Placid will be a success for the league. It seems pretty apparent that they regret leaving in the first place due to the fact that the tournament has been underwhelming ever since (for more reasons than just attendance). The village, the arena and everything about Lake Placid just makes sense. The Olympic Center only seats 8,200 which is perfect for our tournament. The years from 1993-2002 continuously drew between 5,000-7,000 give or take year after year (sold out in 1999 for the St. Lawrence/Clarkson final for obvious reasons). I think we can expect somewhere around that these coming years. Again it does make a slight difference which teams make it in terms of attendance, but there were years between 1993-2002 where the teams who don't typically draw made it and the attendance was still strong. Hopefully everything works out good for our league. We deserve a place to call home and Lake Placid always welcomes us with open arms.
 
Re: Conference Tourney Attendance

I went to Saturday HE championship game and those #'s are pretty accurate. There was a huge walk up business at the Garden box office before the game. Some guy said it looked like freakin' Disneyland. While Lowell represented well, I was also happy with all the BU kids in line too. A very successful tournament IMHO.
 
Re: Conference Tourney Attendance

Rover said:
I went to Saturday HE championship game and those #'s are pretty accurate. There was a huge walk up business at the Garden box office before the game. Some guy said it looked like freakin' Disneyland. While Lowell represented well, I was also happy with all the BU kids in line too. A very successful tournament IMHO.
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Agreed. I also think there may have been a little more of a "draw" due to it being Parker's last HE Tournament.
 
Re: Conference Tourney Attendance

Saints#1 said:
I think Lake Placid will be a success for the league. It seems pretty apparent that they regret leaving in the first place due to the fact that the tournament has been underwhelming ever since (for more reasons than just attendance). The village, the arena and everything about Lake Placid just makes sense. The Olympic Center only seats 8,200 which is perfect for our tournament. The years from 1993-2002 continuously drew between 5,000-7,000 give or take year after year (sold out in 1999 for the St. Lawrence/Clarkson final for obvious reasons). I think we can expect somewhere around that these coming years. Again it does make a slight difference which teams make it in terms of attendance, but there were years between 1993-2002 where the teams who don't typically draw made it and the attendance was still strong. Hopefully everything works out good for our league. We deserve a place to call home and Lake Placid always welcomes us with open arms.
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Be careful with this, because a lot of the draw for ECAC depends on what teams get in. Albany failed because RPI never made it, and Union only made it in the final year after it was decided that they're moving. When the tourney was in LP, RPI never missed twice in a row, and Clarkson almost always made it, along with Cornell. Of course, the Union rule wasn't in place either, and all eligible teams (i.e. 10 out of 12) only had to win one series to make it to LP, not potentially two. If you want attendance, you really need the heavy hitting travelers to make it. Teams like Cornell, Clarkson, RPI, SLU... Yale maybe if it were in New England, but I still don't see that much of a traveling fan base with them. Not a single one of the big four made it to AC this year, and attendance suffered. The league will always report who received a ticket, not who put a rear in one of the seats or a foot in the standing area.
 
Re: Conference Tourney Attendance

How many people at most attend a college hockey game, sixteen thousand? How many T.V. viewers at least watch a televised hockey game [hint: it's WAY more than 16,000]? Which comes first, exposure, popularity, or profit? Bemoaning ticket sales is barking up the wrong tree.
 
Re: Conference Tourney Attendance

FlagDUDE08 said:
Be careful with this, because a lot of the draw for ECAC depends on what teams get in. Albany failed because RPI never made it, and Union only made it in the final year after it was decided that they're moving. When the tourney was in LP, RPI never missed twice in a row, and Clarkson almost always made it, along with Cornell. Of course, the Union rule wasn't in place either, and all eligible teams (i.e. 10 out of 12) only had to win one series to make it to LP, not potentially two. If you want attendance, you really need the heavy hitting travelers to make it. Teams like Cornell, Clarkson, RPI, SLU... Yale maybe if it were in New England, but I still don't see that much of a traveling fan base with them. Not a single one of the big four made it to AC this year, and attendance suffered. The league will always report who received a ticket, not who put a rear in one of the seats or a foot in the standing area.
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This is a terrific point. The ECAC was in LP when its New York teams were powerhouses and consistently made the championship round. For the past decade or so, however, the league has seen the New England teams (namely Harvard and Yale) make it more often.

So, yes, if a semi-final was RPI vs. Cornell, we'd see a GREAT crowd in LP. But what about Brown-Princeton? Or Harvard-Dartmouth? That's going to be a problem no matter where you go, since it doesn't appear that the ECAC wants to have the finals anywhere in New England.

That said, I'd much rather make the trip to Lake Placid than Atlantic City. AC is sleazy and boring for someone with no interest in gambling, while LP is rich in hockey history and is billed as a winter resort. They're almost equidistant from me, but if given the choice, I'd choose to go to LP every time.
 
Re: Conference Tourney Attendance

kdiff77 said:
This is a terrific point. The ECAC was in LP when its New York teams were powerhouses and consistently made the championship round. For the past decade or so, however, the league has seen the New England teams (namely Harvard and Yale) make it more often.

So, yes, if a semi-final was RPI vs. Cornell, we'd see a GREAT crowd in LP. But what about Brown-Princeton? Or Harvard-Dartmouth? That's going to be a problem no matter where you go, since it doesn't appear that the ECAC wants to have the finals anywhere in New England.

That said, I'd much rather make the trip to Lake Placid than Atlantic City. AC is sleazy and boring for someone with no interest in gambling, while LP is rich in hockey history and is billed as a winter resort. They're almost equidistant from me, but if given the choice, I'd choose to go to LP every time.
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When half the league is in a certain state, of course it's going to get some deference. ;) It's not like they haven't had the tournament in New England, though; 1992 and before it used to be in Boston. One thing is really true, though: you need to have a hockey tournament in a hockey town. Detroit and Minneapolis are certainly hockey towns. Boston and Rochester can get away with it because of the success that the local teams have enjoyed, but that's not to say they aren't hockey towns. They wanted Albany to be in the same field, but alas, it didn't pan out. RPI/Union's non-conference game saw a reported attendance of around 6000, so it's not like attendance would have suffered regardless of the teams.
 
Re: Conference Tourney Attendance

CCHA tourney attendance wasn't announced, but it was definitely disappointing, due in large part to an error by Olympia and the Red Wings not blocking the right dates out. The NHL had originally scheduled the Wings to be home and thus the tourney had to be moved back a day. With the need to play the championship early Sunday afternoon to expedite the NCAA selection process, the semis were played at 1 & 430 on Saturday instead of 4 & 730 Friday and the Final at 2:05 on Sunday instead of 7:35 Saturday. Having Michigan and MSU playing NCAA BBall just up the road didn't help either.
 
Re: Conference Tourney Attendance

FlagDUDE08 said:
1992 and before it used to be in Boston
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But that was when all the Hockey East teams were in the ECAC. So you had BC, BU, Northeastern, Harvard, UNH, Providence and Brown (all either in Boston or within 50 miles). And that doesn't include Yale, Maine, Dartmouth and Vermont who were within four hours or less. So there were 11 teams just in New England alone, and at that time the only teams from outside were Cornell, Princeton, Penn, Colgate, St. Lawrence, Clarkson, and Union and RPI (who were only 30 miles from the Massachusetts border). No one is suggesting the ECAC tourney should be in Boston anymore (which it can't be now anyway), but Atlantic City????
 
Re: Conference Tourney Attendance

chickod said:
But that was when all the Hockey East teams were in the ECAC. So you had BC, BU, Northeastern, Harvard, UNH, Providence and Brown (all either in Boston or within 50 miles). And that doesn't include Yale, Maine and Vermont who were within four hours or less. So there were 10 teams just in New England alone, and at that time the only teams from outside were Cornell, Princeton, Penn, Colgate, St. Lawrence, Clarkson, and Union and RPI (who were only 30 miles from the Massachusetts border). No one is suggesting the ECAC tourney should be in Boston anymore, but Atlantic City????
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A league that formed in 1984 had its members still in the old league in 1992? Not to mention, it's pretty impressive that 1992 saw a chance to make the finale for a team that folded in 1978. :rolleyes:
 
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