More proof that the Regional system is a disaster: Today's attendance at the X is...

[jrthomer]

Re: More proof that the Regional system is a disaster: Today's attendance at the X is

There is no "downside" because it's not going to happen. They will NOT go up against the Final Four...period.

+1 The NC$$ believes that the entire country, if not the world, should come to a standstill during the BB FF

 

[icelund]

Re: More proof that the Regional system is a disaster: Today's attendance at the X is

Canadian college teams are stocked with ex-major junior players, and NCAA teams play them all the time. The "obvious" answer to this question is that Major Junior teams are already well into their regular season by the time NCAA teams have a slot for an exhibition, and Major Junior has no real holiday break.

Even if it were logistically reasonable I think the tension between the two leagues would keep any games from happening.

Their underage Canadians are clearly afraid of our overage Canadians...

 

[SanTropez]

Re: More proof that the Regional system is a disaster: Today's attendance at the X is

Women's sports, like women in general, are a huge money pit.

qft

 

[Priceless]

Re: More proof that the Regional system is a disaster: Today's attendance at the X is

Great. College hockey actually gets a mention on the Dan Patrick Show, and we're Paul Pabst's "Worst of the Weekend" in part because he went to the regional with his daughter and attendance was bad.

Thank you NCAA!

 

[RaceBoarder]

Re: More proof that the Regional system is a disaster: Today's attendance at the X is

Random thought...

Everyone keeps mentioning about how Arenas/Host Schools bid on regionals... Does anyone possibly have a list of bids that have been turned down? I'm just curious to what other options we've had during this time frame of attendance problems...

 

[giwan]

Re: More proof that the Regional system is a disaster: Today's attendance at the X is

He said men's. Women's sports, like women in general, are a huge money pit.

They may be in general but would be interesting to see.

 

[Rover]

Re: More proof that the Regional system is a disaster: Today's attendance at the X is

This comes up every year and people always get too worked up about it. Give the regionals a bit more time. 15 years ago people were squawking that the tournament could never fill out an NHL arena. Now its pretty well acknowledged that these venues are the only places large enough to host it. Then we had the 4 city rotation believers (Detroit, Boston, Minny, Milwaukee) because those were the only places with a built in fan base to sell out the arenas. See a pattern here?

The regionals need work no doubt. But its still the best system available. I'd rather have 10K view the event with the possibility of more depending on the match up on the second day than reinstating the bye (which would allow one team's fans to just make a single trip for the day) or having games at home arenas, a ridiculous proposal that reams all other fans but the host teams. Say Merrimac, who's had some good years recently, is hosting a regional. How the hell do you fit those fans into the 3K Volpe Symplex? Even if its at BU or BC and they're playing one another like in 2006. Both Conte and Agganis can't handle the demand in this case.

If not already mentioned I would look into who gets to host these things. Holy Cross who never makes the tournament is a bad choice. If its say Maine (or BU, BC, Cornell) those fans know where they're going to be as soon as they're assured of making the NCAA's. Gives people time to make arrangements thus boosting attendance.

 

[Numbers]

Re: More proof that the Regional system is a disaster: Today's attendance at the X is

I tried to replicate what would have been the conference playoffs in a situation where the Big 10 was already in place for this year. I know this is only a made-up scenario, but I wanted to see how the chips may have fallen.

Method:
1) Make conference standings among all 4 new conferences (Big 10, new WCHA, NCHC, and new Hockey East), using 2011-12 conference standings, and inserting the teams where they needed to be. As an example, I placed Bowling Green 8th and Anchorage 9th in the new WCHA.
2) Create conference playoff brackets. I used best-of-3 between #3/6 and 4/5 in the Big 10, and then a single elimination weekend. New WCHA - 9th place team out. Best-of-3 weekend for quarterfinals, then a single elimination weekend. NCHC – Best-of-3 quarters, then a single elimination weekend. HE – Same as CCHA in its current state. ECAC and AHA stayed the same.
3) Tried to replicate as much as possible the results of this year's actual results. For example, I put down BG upsetting FSU in 3 games. So, basically, if a team played well in its conference tourney, I put down good results for them. The one problem I had in this was that WMU ended up playing UND in the NCHC semis. I chose to make UND the winner, since they won the game in the regional this last week, but as you see below, that took WMU out of the tourney, and left room for NMU to be in. Again, this is just a simulation.

As a final PWR, I got:
1- BC; 2-Michigan; 3-Union; 4-UND
5-UMD; 6-Maine; 7-FSU; 8- BU
9-Minn; 10-Lowell; 11-Miami; 12-MSU
13-NMU; 14-Denver; 15-Cornell; 16-Air Force

So, it's the same teams. Of course, this is be expected. All the results from the regular season would be the same. Only the playoffs changed, and like I wrote above, I tried to do this in a way that wouldn't affect things too much.

So for the tournament:
Worcester – BC, BU, Lowell, Air Force
Green Bay – Michigan, FSU, Miami, Cornell
Bridgeport – Union, Maine, MSU, Denver
St Paul – UND, UMD, Minn, NMU

This is the first approximation. I simply went: 1/8, 2/7, 3/6, 4/5 for the top 2 tiers. Then, Minnesota in St Paul, and then, for the other #3 seeds, Highest remaining (Lowell) v lowest remaining #2. Don't know what the committee would do. However, BU and Lowell can't play each other. (Note that FSU v Miami is now an OK matchup, because FSU is WCHA, Miami is NCHC. Likewise, UMD v Minn is OK, because Minn is now Big 10). So, I swap Lowell and Miami, and I get:

Worcester – BC, BU, Miami, Air Force
Green Bay – Michigan, FSU, Lowell, Cornell
Bridgeport – Union, Maine, MSU, Denver
St Paul – UND, UMD, Minn, NMU

Now, is this a better or worse mix than we had this week? Would the attendance, and therefore atmosphere be better or worse? You tell me. Personally, as a Minnesota fan, after the Gophers are in the Big 10, I think that St Paul region is great!!

Other comments? I am putting this up as a “What if we already had the new conference alignment in place?”

 

[smitre]

Re: More proof that the Regional system is a disaster: Today's attendance at the X is

To be fair his 'Worst of the Weekend' was not the low attendance in Bridgeport. His worst was the idiot arena usher who booted him and his young daughter from the completely unoccupied seats down near the boards.

Great. College hockey actually gets a mention on the Dan Patrick Show, and we're Paul Pabst's "Worst of the Weekend" in part because he went to the regional with his daughter and attendance was bad.

Thank you NCAA!

 

[Priceless]

Re: More proof that the Regional system is a disaster: Today's attendance at the X is

To be fair his 'Worst of the Weekend' was not the low attendance in Bridgeport. His worst was the idiot arena usher who booted him and his young daughter from the completely unoccupied seats down near the boards.

Yes, but he mentioned attendance was light. Not the way we want our sport described. He didn't mention which teams he watched, or who won or anything else about the event except attendance was crap. For his story, he could have been describing any sports event, but the one thing he mentions about NCAA hockey is that attendance was bad.

 

[Handyman]

Re: More proof that the Regional system is a disaster: Today's attendance at the X is

And, for the record, I also find it strange that they didn't end up opening the upper portion at the X today.

Why is it strange, the lower bowl was not sold out. I know people who walked up to the box office 30 minutes before puck drop and got two seats together behind the net the Gophers shot at twice. I dont know where this notion of a lower bowl sell out came from I was there it wasnt close.

 

[Caustic Undertow]

Re: More proof that the Regional system is a disaster: Today's attendance at the X is

Yes, but he mentioned attendance was light. Not the way we want our sport described. He didn't mention which teams he watched, or who won or anything else about the event except attendance was crap. For his story, he could have been describing any sports event, but the one thing he mentions about NCAA hockey is that attendance was bad.

If "growing the sport" is important, we've just seen that it's not working. Some guy who takes his daughter to a regional is supposed to see the best our sport has to offer; instead he just smacked our sport down on national radio.

Originally posted by <b>Rover</b> >>

Give the regionals a bit more time.

Ten years is enough time. The regionals have gotten noticeably worse.

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you haven't been reading the thread super-closely, which is understandable with 230 posts and counting, many of which are quite substantial. But you are countering arguments that are, at best, infrequently made in this thread.

Nobody is suggesting that home teams host regionals. They are suggesting that they host individual tournament games, a proposal that ensures that at least 8 fanbases get a legitimate chance to see their team. BC and BU aren't playing each other at Merrimack; they're playing each other at Agganis or Conte, where that kind of game ought to be played. This year the regionals "reamed" far more than that, including all four fanbases that sent teams to Green Bay. Cornell has great fans, right? They might have had 100 people in Green Bay. Only a tiny percentage of Ferris State fans have ever gotten an opportunity to watch their team play in the NCAA tournament in person, because they've only ever played in Minnesota or Wisconsin.

 

[Caustic Undertow]

Re: More proof that the Regional system is a disaster: Today's attendance at the X is

A comment further up the chain mentioned that the regional starting times are bad, and thus ESPN is at fault for poor attendance.

This is a poor argument, unless you are of the opinion that watching games on television is unimportant. Here is why:

ESPN is indeed likely the responsible party for starting times, but that is because they are trying to spread the games out in such a way that more of them are able to air live on ESPNU. There are threads complaining about how few games are viewable elsewhere on this board (even though the tournament is more accessible than ever, you can't get all of the games everywhere). The NCAA is perfectly free to play all the games at the same time, but then you get to watch even fewer of them. By spreading the start times out more games are played in free time slots and ESPN U shows more of them; they basically gave over their entire weekend to college hockey.

So if you blame ESPN for the poor start times, you are arguing that you don't want to watch many of the games on TV. If you complain that not enough games are viewable live, you are arguing that they should stagger start times--or hoping for NBC Sports or ESPN2 coverage, a fantasy akin to wishing for a million dollars under your bed. You can't have it both ways.

 

[giwan]

Re: More proof that the Regional system is a disaster: Today's attendance at the X is

As much as people may want to blame ESPN for anything and everything; time, quality, blackouts, poor announcers etc. If it was not for ESPN chances are no one would have seen a thing unless they were there.

 

[Caustic Undertow]

Re: More proof that the Regional system is a disaster: Today's attendance at the X is

Frequently? Can you verify that please?

Let's define an "unfair advantage" as any NCAA regional game where a lower seed is playing close enough to its fan base to expect that their fans will fill the majority of the seats available. We are only going to look at the 4-regional era, which started in 2003, and we'll ignore the not-infrequent times where a team had home or home-like fans but was the high seed, even though a number of people debating on this thread despise <b>any</b> home-ice advantage in a regional.

2003:
#3 Michigan vs. #2 Main at Yost Ice Arena.
#3 Michigan vs. #1 Colorado College at Yost Ice Arena (bonus points for CC being a big-ice team playing on Michigan's NHL rink. It was definitely a factor)

Not counted: Minnesota played two games at home as a #1 seed. BU as a #2 seed hosted and played #1 seed UNH, but at Worcester UNH fans had a decent opportunity to attend.

2004:
#3 UNH vs. #2 Michigan in Manchester
(UNH did not advance to face #1 seed BC)

#3 Michigan State vs. #2 UMD in Grand Rapids
(MSU did not advance to face #1 seed Minnesota)

Unclear: #2 Denver vs. #1 North Dakota in Colorado Springs. Clear regional advantage for Denver but CC likely had a lot of fans in the building rooting against them.

2005:

#3 BU vs. #2 North Dakota in Worcester

#2 Michigan vs. #1 CC in Grand Rapids

Not counted: #1 Minnesota played two games in Mariucci.

2006:
#3 BU vs. #2 Miami in Worcester

Not counted: #1 Wisconsin played two games at the Resch Center in Green Bay in front of essentially a home crowd.

Not sure how to classify this: #2 North Dakota would have had home ice against #1 Minnesota if their fans hadn't willed Holy Cross to do this the day before. Clearly an unfair crowd; this game, however, is not an argument in my favor.

2007:
#3 Michigan State vs. #2 BU in Grand Rapids
#3 Michigan State vs. #1 Notre Dame in Grand Rapids

Insufficient data: #4 Air Force against #1 Minnesota in Denver. Didn't see it (had to work), regionally imbalanced but crowd was probably neutral.

Not counted: #1 UNH played against #4 Miami in Manchester to a partisan crowd.

2008:
#3 Wisconsin vs. #2 Denver in Madison
#3 Wisconsin vs. #1 North Dakota in Madison
#2 BC vs. #1 Miami in Worcester

Not counted: #2 CC played #3 Michigan State in Colorado Springs

2009:
#3 UNH vs. #2 North Dakota in Manchester
#3 UNH vs. #1 BU in Manchester

2010:
Not counted: BC played two games in Worcester.
All other regionals were too pitifully attended to give any crowd advantage at all, though if Michigan hadn't been robbed in Fort Wayne they would've had 30,000 fans at Ford Field, which if nothing else was the ultimate "neutral site."

2011:
#4 UNH vs. #1 Miami in Manchester
#4 UNH vs. #3 Notre Dame in Manchester

2012:
Not counted: Minnesota played the only team that could possibly match it in crowd, and the X was pretty neutral.

Final tally: 16 games with definite unearned lower seed home crowd advantage.

 

[amherstblackbear]

Re: More proof that the Regional system is a disaster: Today's attendance at the X is

My only quibble with that list is that it combines campus sites and off-campus sites, and probably overstates the extent of the problem as a result.

Minnesota-Duluth may have an advantage over Michigan State at a regional in, say, St. Paul. But that's nowhere near the advantage they'd have if they played on their home rink in Duluth.

Michigan may have an advantage over a team like Cornell at a regional in Grand Rapids. But that's nothing compared to actually playing at Yost.

I'd separate out those "BU in Worcester, "Michigan in Grand Rapids" examples from the true "Minnesota at Mariucci" and "Michigan at Yost" examples.

$.02

 

[Slap Shot]

Re: More proof that the Regional system is a disaster: Today's attendance at the X is

Why would having games on-campus increase attendance? This was about cost, not location. Mariucci wouldn't have had more butts in the seats if the prices were the same, while the X would have had more if the prices were lowered.

 

[kdilks]

Re: More proof that the Regional system is a disaster: Today's attendance at the X is

So you're eliminating four teams and raising the possibility of making a team travel three weeks in a row? Sorry, I can't believe that's progress. And I also don't understand, why, if best of three is good in the first round, where you have more mismatches, it's not used in the Frozen Four, where the teams are more equal.

I'm pretty sure hockey has by far the highest % of teams making the NCAA tournament of any sport right now. Going back to 12 teams is something that's potentially going to happen anyways, especially if any more programs fold.

What problem is there with potentially travelling three weeks in a row? That literally happens all the time. It can happen in the CCHA tournament right now (Bowling Green was @Northern, @Ferris, then @JLA). Louisville basketball is at their 5th straight week on the road (@Syracuse, 4 games at MSG for Big East tournament, first 2 rounds in Portland, OR, next 2 rounds in Phoenix, Final Four in New Orleans), and those are all flights. With the East/West division, you make it more likely that travelling teams will be within driving distance. Plus it affords you the opportunity to earn the privilege of not having to travel, instead of having it randomly assigned to teams based on where the regionals are and how everybody happens to line up 1-16.

Obviously if you had more time, you would do longer series throughout the whole tournament (and if travel were less of a concern, you'd do series with home and away games). But at least this way, you can reduce the "lottery" aspect down to 4 teams that have really done something to earn the chance. As it stands now, a team like MSU that was solidly 5th in their conference and barely in the top 1/4 of all teams got roughly the same shot as the other 15 teams to win it all.

 

[hockeyplayer1015]

Why would having games on-campus increase attendance? This was about cost, not location. Mariucci wouldn't have had more butts in the seats if the prices were the same, while the X would have had more if the prices were lowered.

Because he want's his cake and want's to eat it too!!

Sorry, not buying the latest argument, Caustic. Most of those schools did the legwork to submit a sponsored bid with an arena, and did enough to make the tournament. Therefore, it is indeed earned. If the upper seeds didn't like it, then they should have submitted a bid, pretty cut and dry IMO.

 

[Caustic Undertow]

Why would having games on-campus increase attendance? This was about cost, not location. Mariucci wouldn't have had more butts in the seats if the prices were the same, while the X would have had more if the prices were lowered.

The Resch was about location, not cost. With lower prices you could've packed an extra 1000 people in there at most.