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Michigan Tech Huskies 2020-21: * Our 100th Anniversary * No Catchy Title Needed *****

DrunkTrainPolka said:
LCA and UofM gone? two birds, one stone... and don't let the door hit you on the way out!

every team in the CCHA is in a state that has a great lake(s) shore... GLI? yep, have a rotating tournament that goes to cities in michigan, minnesota, and ohio. and toss in wisconsin/illinois for good measure.

let tech be the only one staple, three rotating teams? one (or two) from the CCHA and the two others from two other conferences? one obviously from the state you are playing in...

duluth; tech, umd, nodak, nmu

green bay; tech, wisco, uofmn, lssu

milwaukee; tech, wisco, mnsu, ust

chicago; tech, wisco, bgsu, miami

detroit; tech, wmu, fsu, bgsu

cleveland; tech, etc, etc, etc

innovate or die!
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If you're not going to immediately spray barf over the thought of going to Toledo, this might be a pretty cool venue twist: https://www.toledowalleye.com/en/winterfest
 
Redridge said:
You had me until ...Toledo... haha
This is absolutely what Tech needs to do. How the heck did Tech’s biggest recruiting series become tied to the UofM and MSU show? Cut the strings, leverage all of the teams along the great lakes. Get some of those games back with UMD, UND, and create some excitement with the upstate New York schools...
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Long and legit history. John understood the need to be in front of the Alumni which many are around the Detroit area. Initially UM was not in it and John "HELPED" his friend Red and invited them. They then became co-host at some point. MSU was added as a guest. Then Tech went into a dark era while MSU and UM were doing well so important to keep them then. Things change.

Move it to a traveling tournament. Sounds good. Has anyone done any marketing on this? Who knows. Enough alums and pull in other states? Not sure and depends on who else is in the draw.
 
I think the farther you get from MI / WI / MN the population density of Tech alumni will drop off pretty quick so you'll want to keep it a mostly Midwest event. My other thought was to try and NOT invite other CCHA teams if possible. It is better for Tech to use the tourney to get games (and hopefully wins) against non-conference teams. Very few teams seem to want to come to Houghton so the tourney can be the opportunity to get two key non-conference wins on the books and help the end of year Pairwise Ranking for the NCAA tourney.

The Walleye were exactly what I was thinking about when I put Toledo on the list. Solid hockey town and a good enough facility to host a holiday tourney.
 
JohnsonsJerseys said:
I think the farther you get from MI / WI / MN the population density of Tech alumni will drop off pretty quick so you'll want to keep it a mostly Midwest event. My other thought was to try and NOT invite other CCHA teams if possible. It is better for Tech to use the tourney to get games (and hopefully wins) against non-conference teams. Very few teams seem to want to come to Houghton so the tourney can be the opportunity to get two key non-conference wins on the books and help the end of year Pairwise Ranking for the NCAA tourney.

The Walleye were exactly what I was thinking about when I put Toledo on the list. Solid hockey town and a good enough facility to host a holiday tourney.
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i would love for tech to play non-CCHA teams... but in reality that would be hard to accomplish if you are considering a multi-state rotation with fans actually showing up.

if you stay in the "mid-west" (which i think is a must) what you have is the NACHO and the B1G.

can you create enough of a rotation? i don't think so. again, i have a hard time not seeing a total of at least two CCHA teams;

how about;

MTU-vs-NACHO -&- CCHA-vs-B1G - even years
MTU-vs-B1G -&- CCHA-vs-NACHO - odd years

regardless... it's a bigger risk not taking the chance on changing things.

bringing in a team from the east would be great... but attendance would suffer. but would it?
 
DrunkTrainPolka said:
i would love for tech to play non-CCHA teams... but in reality that would be hard to accomplish if you are considering a multi-state rotation with fans actually showing up.

if you stay in the "mid-west" (which i think is a must) what you have is the NACHO and the B1G.

can you create enough of a rotation? i don't think so. again, i have a hard time not seeing a total of at least two CCHA teams;

how about;

MTU-vs-NACHO -&- CCHA-vs-B1G - even years
MTU-vs-B1G -&- CCHA-vs-NACHO - odd years

regardless... it's a bigger risk not taking the chance on changing things.

bringing in a team from the east would be great... but attendance would suffer. but would it?
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Sorry to keep trolling your conversation, but you could add those western PA/NY AH teams into the mix. Mercyhurst has done the outdoor Winterfest with us in the past. Maybe throw in RIT as well. Lots of options.
 
giwan said:
Long and legit history. John understood the need to be in front of the Alumni which many are around the Detroit area. Initially UM was not in it and John "HELPED" his friend Red and invited them. They then became co-host at some point. MSU was added as a guest. Then Tech went into a dark era while MSU and UM were doing well so important to keep them then. Things change.

Move it to a traveling tournament. Sounds good. Has anyone done any marketing on this? Who knows. Enough alums and pull in other states? Not sure and depends on who else is in the draw.
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The Skunkies came into the GLI well before Red was back on campus. They became a co-host in 1976 when former Tech assistant Dan Farrell was the head coach. Their first appearance was in the second ever GLI when former Tech coach Al Renfrew was running the show there. None of this has anything to do with Berenson at any point.

The last GLI without Michigan State was in 1978, and they were named a permanent invitee shortly after that while they were still a doormat.

Considering that neither one of the Michigan based B1G teams has much of a traveling fan base anymore and there's no TV to worry about, they really aren't anywhere near the factor they used to be in the days of PASS or Fox Sports Detroit.
 
JohnsonsJerseys said:
Agreed on dumping Michigan and honestly State could go too. Let Tech run with it and make it their own.

Let's think outside the box. This does not have to be the Detroit Invitational. It is the GREAT LAKES invitational so how about moving the tourney each year with Tech as the host and pick-up three local teams to help with attendance issues. For example
Play in Milwaukee and bring in WI, MN and Notre Dame
Play in Duluth and bring in UMD, UND and St Thomas
Play in Rochester (NY) and bring in Penn State, Niagara and Cornell
Play in Toledo and bring in OSU, BGSU and Miami

So many great hockey towns around the great lakes. Is it more work to move it every year? Absolutely. But I also imagine it would be far cheaper than the LCA and with new location/teams every year you get new alumni involved and new opposing fans. Now if someone misses the GLI: "Ahh, no big deal, we'll go next year..." But if it isn't coming back to your area for 4-5 years, more people might actually plan to attend. If you want to split the work load, maybe pick another team to be co-host with Tech. Then you only need to find two teams each year. No reason in today's world to hold the same tourney every single holiday break.

Just look at the neutral games UND sets up, or the Ice Breaker or the US Hockey Hall of Fame game... they move around and become a desirable event because they don't repeat year after year after year. NCAA regionals should be the same thing, but people only have a week to prepare and make the trip so they don't draw as well.
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good idea
 
I've been thinking and you know, what's in it for the big schools. They already play each other. I also think if you are them, you might want to not do it every year, there are so many competing interests. So maybe you keep it going with MSU and then do like we've been doing, bring in another Michigan team and one non CCHA team. the big question is though, where are you going to have it and who is taking the financial risk. I think it needs to stay in the Detroit area someplace, I just wonder if it will be the same if it's not at LCA.
 
manurespreader said:
I've been thinking and you know, what's in it for the big schools. They already play each other. I also think if you are them, you might want to not do it every year, there are so many competing interests. So maybe you keep it going with MSU and then do like we've been doing, bring in another Michigan team and one non CCHA team. the big question is though, where are you going to have it and who is taking the financial risk. I think it needs to stay in the Detroit area someplace, I just wonder if it will be the same if it's not at LCA.
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The building wants big crowds, no matter where the building is. The reason that Olympia Entertainment wanted both B1G schools in was the draw of them playing each other in the championship game, which would attract the most day-of-game casual fans and increase the attendance. For many years the second day was a much bigger draw when it ended up with Tech in the 3rd place game against the field's invitee (since Tech fans were coming for both games no matter what) and Michigan State vs Michigan for the championship (where many fans didn't bother with the first day as they waited to see if their team would win their semifinals). Olympia was very successful with this for many years, but since 2011 they have only met for the title once. MSU has played in the 3rd place game for 7 of the past 8 tournaments, and UM has played it 5 times in that stretch. That brings zero casual fans.

Back in the heyday of the CCHA, the two B1G schools also didn't mind extra games against each other since they got the added benefit of getting used to JLA before the tournament concluded there. Along with the regular season game they started playing against each other there in 1991, that was a secondary reason to get an advantage over almost every other league team every season. Plus a guaranteed matchup in the regular season had better ticket sales than a potential meeting.

If you're going to hold a tournament, people need to attend to make it work. There are very few places with a draw for the casual college hockey fan especially in the "West", so you'd better find teams with big followings to guarantee the attendance - and those are few and far between too. So unless you have some other draw for the casual fan, making a tournament work with good crowds for all four games in today's college hockey is a pipe dream (excluding an exception like the Beanpot).
 
John J. MacInnes said:
The building wants big crowds, no matter where the building is. The reason that Olympia Entertainment wanted both B1G schools in was the draw of them playing each other in the championship game, which would attract the most day-of-game casual fans and increase the attendance. For many years the second day was a much bigger draw when it ended up with Tech in the 3rd place game against the field's invitee (since Tech fans were coming for both games no matter what) and Michigan State vs Michigan for the championship (where many fans didn't bother with the first day as they waited to see if their team would win their semifinals). Olympia was very successful with this for many years, but since 2011 they have only met for the title once. MSU has played in the 3rd place game for 7 of the past 8 tournaments, and UM has played it 5 times in that stretch. That brings zero casual fans.

Back in the heyday of the CCHA, the two B1G schools also didn't mind extra games against each other since they got the added benefit of getting used to JLA before the tournament concluded there. Along with the regular season game they started playing against each other there in 1991, that was a secondary reason to get an advantage over almost every other league team every season. Plus a guaranteed matchup in the regular season had better ticket sales than a potential meeting.

If you're going to hold a tournament, people need to attend to make it work. There are very few places with a draw for the casual college hockey fan especially in the "West", so you'd better find teams with big followings to guarantee the attendance - and those are few and far between too. So unless you have some other draw for the casual fan, making a tournament work with good crowds for all four games in today's college hockey is a pipe dream (excluding an exception like the Beanpot).
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let's hold the GLI in grand forks every year and replace the green spartans with the green chicken hawks!!! ;)

the other two teams come from minnesota; a mixed bag of NACHO, B1G, and CCHA teams.

yeah, i am being funny. but it would sell out.

or [now being 'more' serious] partner with UMD as a co-host, play in duluth every year and have the same mixed bag to pull from for the other two teams including wisco, nmu, and lssu.

again, INOVATE or DIE!
 
I assume that this arrangement was only agreed to for this season and was made because it is late July and the schedules need to be finalized. I will expect fresh ideas for next season.
 
Frankly, I see it as a likely end to the GLI as we know it. It may continue to exist in some new fashion, but I think the days of it being an annual holiday tournament in Detroit are over. Honestly, that frees us up to consider a lot of alternatives after this season.
 
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