NCAA championship weekend coverage

[SNC SID]

Re: NCAA championship weekend coverage

This is incorrect. You and I were in contact this season a couple of times for matters relating to the St. Norbert women's coverage on USCHO

I also talked with Coach Morgan on a couple of occassions as well.

I fixed my post. I hope you had a safe trip home.

 

[SNC SID]

Re: NCAA championship weekend coverage

2) I did not get one e-mail from anybody who is complaining, or frankly anybody at all, asking me to write recaps or features on D-III hockey this season. I assigned a few features to my columnists, and encouraged them to write more, and with the first season of the new format in, I figure that will expand next season. If you want more recaps, put up or shut up. E-mail me and ask.

I'm not trying to start anything here, but as someone who has some newspaper experience it's not the reader's job to determine the content of a publication. It's up to the editorial staff and their supervisors to figure that out on their own. That's what they get paid to do.

I've spoken my piece on this. Things obviously need to improve. Those I know well at USCHO get it, and I hope they will be able to improve the situation. I'm confident they will.

 

[LakerEagleLover]

Re: NCAA championship weekend coverage

Put up or Shut up? Really?

This has nothing to do with limited product knowledge, but poor management with little accountability for product quality. Just because you didn't receive complaints or emails all season doesn't mean you were doing a good job. Besides, Why should your customers be telling you what to do? You should be able to figure that out for yourself....reading the boards should have given you all the real time intelligence you need to shape your editorial direction and assign resources.... How was it that with FIVE DIII writers, there was not ONE at the NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP.??

Anyone reading this has to wonder how you still have a job......



Edit - to clarify, was your beat writer staff or freelance....if staff, then I would restate my question to ask why there was ONLY one

 

[bakdraft21]

Re: NCAA championship weekend coverage

wow man I wonder if there was any of this stuff back when I played at Oswego,84-87, all I can remember is the coach saying we are ranked 10, 5, 15, etc, that was it, at least there is a lot more now-a-days for the fans and the players, I guess it is all relative.......keep up the good work to all involved, and if we can get more coverage that is better.......its gonna be a long spring summer without Laker/DIII hockey....cant wait til oct 15th and or the bunny practices.....

 

[The Real Georgia Peach]

Re: NCAA championship weekend coverage

Nothing on the home page of the DIII winner?

 

[Matt Rennell]

Re: NCAA championship weekend coverage

I figure I'll post one more time before leaving this thread. But here is what I will say:

6) Matt, you have no idea what went on in St. Louis. With the CCHA now without a commissioner due to the BTHC/MSU thing, the whole event was run very poorly, and it was a struggle to get info a timely matter. In fact, there was no all-tournament team announced, or even voted on. We struggled with poor Internet connectivity, interview requests, rude ushers who didn't know what was going on, delays in getting interviews with players, and more. I can tell you that on Friday, we didn't get back to the hotel until close to 2 a.m.

Others have said what I would have said to the rest of the post so let me address this. I'm sorry the experience in St. Louis was not a great one. It sounds like it was pretty rough, but it has nothing to do with my original point.

The point is, why were you even there in the first place? You are the D3 Editor. If USCHO is going to fly you somewhere, one would think they would send you to Minnesota to cover what they are paying you to do. You shouldn't have even been in St. Louis in the first place, USCHO has, or at least should have others already in place to cover that.

Case in point, in 2007 when I was writing for USCHO the D3 women's and D1 womens championships were on the same weekend. Thankfully they were all happening within an hours distance from one another. The D3 games were Friday/Saturday and D1 was Saturday/Sunday. What I did, since I was being paid to cover D3 women, was I attended all 4 games for the D3 Women's Championships. I did not go to the D1 Women semi's. Why? Because that was not my job. I did my job, and when it was over, THEN I went and helped out with the D1 crew over in Lake Placid on Sunday.

That is the one thing I don't understand. Since you obviously flew, and I am assuming USCHO footed the bill, why were you in St. Louis in the first place? Why not Minny? If you had been, you wouldn't have experienced any of the problems you did in St. Louis and most of what has been said in this thread never would have occured. Has the coverage been poor the last 3 years? Yes. But what seems to really get under a D3 fans skin is after getting thrown to the curbside all season USCHO doesn't even come through when it matters most in March.

Trust me, I know it is not an easy job. I also know it is not just you, you just happen to be the only one responding. The ones who really need to read this never will.

 

[Chris Lerch]

Re: NCAA championship weekend coverage

Like most news organizations, final decisions about who goes where are not made by the writers or even the editorial staff, but by the owner and executive team. Travel budget allocations are determined based on interest. Like it or not, there was at least an order of magnitude difference in interest over a regional with Michigan and Boston College than the D-III championships. At the D-III level, we are at the mercy of geography in the amount of coverage we can provide (i.e. the travel budget is commensurate with the anticipated readership).

Please go here to provide feedback, which I and others at USCHO appreciate. Your input is important and will have an effect on future editorial/budgetary decisions.

 

[altazo]

Re: NCAA championship weekend coverage

Yes, USCHO's coverage of D3 hockey hasn't been particularly good recently, but it is better than nothing. Time for D3 West hockey to start a forum section?

Not to mention the four teams that played at Ridder over the weekend would probably have little trouble handling the bottom third of D1 teams...

 

[LakerEagleLover]

Re: NCAA championship weekend coverage

I have been searching this site for some time trying to figure out who's in charge, ownership and/or affiliations, etc. Did it miss it? Is the org chart a secret?

 

[Arafel]

Re: NCAA championship weekend coverage

I'm not trying to start anything here, but as someone who has some newspaper experience it's not the reader's job to determine the content of a publication. It's up to the editorial staff and their supervisors to figure that out on their own. That's what they get paid to do.

I've spoken my piece on this. Things obviously need to improve. Those I know well at USCHO get it, and I hope they will be able to improve the situation. I'm confident they will.

Put up or Shut up? Really?

This has nothing to do with limited product knowledge, but poor management with little accountability for product quality. Just because you didn't receive complaints or emails all season doesn't mean you were doing a good job. Besides, Why should your customers be telling you what to do? You should be able to figure that out for yourself....reading the boards should have given you all the real time intelligence you need to shape your editorial direction and assign resources.... How was it that with FIVE DIII writers, there was not ONE at the NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP.??

Edit - to clarify, was your beat writer staff or freelance....if staff, then I would restate my question to ask why there was ONLY one

You are missing the point, which is that earlier in the thread, it was stated there were plenty of people who would like to write recaps and/or features on D-III. If that is the case, why didn't I get any e-mails from people offering to write recaps? I'd be happy to arrange credentials.

As stated before, I have five D-III writers. I was happy with the quality of their content and what they were writing on. Can it get better? Sure, and it will. However, I think some people are here missing what they accomplished. We had three posts per week from each of them, which gives you 15 stories/blogs on D-III hockey weekly during the season. That's a lot of coverage.

I can't get into why I wasn't in Minneapolis, but there were reasons. We had a beat writer, a guy who wrote recaps on Minnesota this year, and again, I felt he (and the photographer), did a good job.

 

[Chris Lerch]

Re: NCAA championship weekend coverage

And, ironically...we had far more content this year than ever in D-III.

 

[AldenPartridge1819]

Re: NCAA championship weekend coverage

And, ironically...we had far more content this year than ever in D-III.

The predictions are worthless. To me, that doesn't count as coverage. And late content might as well not even be there. There was no coverage at all of the national quarterfinals on the d-3 page (apologies to Jaslow for not seeing his recap on the scoreboard).

Let's face it, the coverage -- especially down the stretch -- absolutely sucked. That's it. You guys blew it. Then, D3westhockey.com and others stepped up and made this site look even more foolish.

At least you had a headline breaking the death of the interlock story 6 months later

 

[93GreatLaker]

Re: NCAA championship weekend coverage

I for one appreciate the coverage USCHO does offer, and the fan forum it provides. It is also solid of them to allow the links to other sites as noted earlier in this thread. We have many great posters on this board that offer recaps to plenty of games so very rarely do any of us totally miss out on what has transpired in DIII.

Be thankful for what we do have, (up to date scores, statistics, 10+ years of historical data, links to team sites, some articles, an occasional recap, and a great forum) and quit whining about something that we get for free.

 

[The Real Georgia Peach]

Re: NCAA championship weekend coverage

I just went back to the home page, and still, not even a single headline for D-III winner, Even I could have at least written, "St. Norbert College wins NCAA Div III Men's Championship" .......

 

[joeyc3402]

Re: NCAA championship weekend coverage

I just went back to the home page, and still, not even a single headline for D-III winner, Even I could have at least written, "St. Norbert College wins NCAA Div III Men's Championship" .......

Go to the D-III home, and it's there.

I really wouldn't expect it to be up on the "site" front page (the D-I men's page, in other words).

Why can't USCHO just start linking to established blogs like D3WH, stouthockey, and cardinalhockey? Act as a hub for that sort of information. Generate more hits for people looking for a central place for information, and generate more hits for the various blogs. Those sites by and large have pretty decent content... so why try to fight it? It's pretty obvious that the current "model" for D-III men that USCHO has doesn't work, as evidenced by the "plateau" of traffic on this site. It would seem to be a pretty logical way to add more content with minimal costs added.

 

[ADRdogs]

Re: NCAA championship weekend coverage

I for one appreciate the coverage USCHO does offer, and the fan forum it provides. It is also solid of them to allow the links to other sites as noted earlier in this thread. We have many great posters on this board that offer recaps to plenty of games so very rarely do any of us totally miss out on what has transpired in DIII.

The biggest problem I see is when you go to the D-III homepage the headlines never change. the 3rd line down is Adrian playing at the Bighouse.
That was Dec.4th. If the Headlines dont change why look any farther. Even if you just list a game with link to the recap. That would at least tell me the site has been
updated since I looked at it last.

 

[norm1909]

Re: NCAA championship weekend coverage

I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I'm not feeling the love from some disgruntled former employees. I have allowed links to competing sites because I think this sport needs all the coverage it can get. And because I like you guys. But ripping on USCHO, which extends this courtesy to you, and has led the charge for more exposure to this sport for over a decade, is bush. We, as Matt can attest, are stretched thin especially when the D-III finals are held in the West.

Unfortunately as I fight for more resources for D-III, I have been presented with the cold, hard facts that over the last couple of years, D-III interest has plateaued, while the other three areas (D-I men, D-I women, D-III Women) are still growing. Is this a checken-or-the-egg thing? Does my ego suggest that after I had to stop putting my heart and soul into D-III coverage things stopped growing? Was it when all the RIT fans left? No, I would be giving myself and them too much credit. For whatever reason I think there are external forces that have caused interest in D-III to plateau. Attendance is down at many of the big schools compared to 5 years ago. That's an area for investigation I'd like to explore. Maybe I'll come out of retirement to do it.

But in the meantime, yes, we are always looking for recappers. We have a heck of a time finding them at D-III schools. Jaslow and most of our writers drive a ridiculous amount of miles to cover games when they can. Despite the fact that the number of page views on D-III recaps is well below their D-I counterparts, we still want more. If we get more writers, I can guarantee you that I will fight for another recap editing position on the weekends. But we have to have the writers lined up and committed, or we're not going spend the resources, especially on something with a smaller nucleus of interest.

This was the second year in a row I failed to see a D-III game and that sucked. As it is, I have three games left this year to see, and I hope they're good. For those out West, maybe I'll see you in St. Paul.

First I must say that for comprehensive DIII coverage, USCHO is the preeminent leader and IMO, no one can fault the efforts of the writers and contributors, especially when considering they are effectively only given token pay, kudos to them.

I continue to be a paying member of USCHO because I realize, nothing is, nor should be free. But I do believe that there is significant potential to tap into the DIII appetite. Could it happen overnight? No, but I strongly believe it would not be contrary to or require a significant change to the USCHO business model to elevate it to profitability and significant prestige.

I find it childishly offensive that a line such as “I have allowed links to competing sites because I think this sport needs all the coverage it can get.” would be used by someone I have considerable respect for, I can only assume/hope it was made out of frustration. Sites of the nature of USCHO do NOT have “competing sites”, they have “complementary” sites, the” public persona” of these sites is to share and promote the news/events/trials & accolades of the competition of sport, not become protectively competitive themselves.

There is certainly enough to go around, and no one should feel “singled out” for criticism, but rather honored that they are significant enough to be critiqued. Everyone knows that there is always room for improvement, and certainly USCHO has a GREAT potential to improve, it has a strong presence and basis on which to build. I think/hope that all those involved internally at USCHO would appreciate the creative criticism and make serious efforts to act upon them; anything else simply appears to show a guilty conscience.

 

[PSUChamps2001]

Re: NCAA championship weekend coverage

Here is something to ponder...

USCHO gives us things that no one else can probably do, and d3westhockey.com gives us things that USCHO can not. It wasn't the best the USCHO waited so long to produce huge stories over the season when we knew about them for months at times, for whatever reasons. So we go to d3westhockey.com to see those stories. If USCHO can't/doesn't want to put the effort that some of us feel DIII hockey deserves then there is no reason why d3westhockey.com cant. It's not a thing of who is better, its who is giving us the story. I know I for one look at d3westhockey.com for the latest information, but even they can not give us everything that USCHO does. Why everyone can't work together is beyond me. Yes I was dissapointed doing my FHL stats that USCHO hadn't updated their database, but sometimes things happen. Is it wrong that the DIII editor was at the DI regionals? We all have our opinion. I think its obvious that the higher ups hold DIII hockey on a much lower standard then our big brothers of DI. The fan base isnt there numbers wise, the money isnt there, and most of all the sponsors. Just like the people complaining about teams and their tv broadcasts or the NCAA broadcast being "choppy". ITS FREE. For those of us who have been around college hockey for 20 years, it was a great thing just to have your teams games broadcasted on the radio, let alone the internet. Now we can WATCH a hockey game pretty much every weekend, and or listen to it, or at the least live stats from anywhere around the country, for FREE. How can we complain about that.

 

[LakerEagleLover]

Re: NCAA championship weekend coverage

United States College Hockey Online

This brand implies you cover all college hockey with no bias due to size or gender - if its in the US and college and ice hockey, then you cover it (might want to consider a club section).

If you think you have done DIII Men's hockey justice and want to use statistics, disgruntled former employees and a tough trip to St Louis to rationalize what you do despite what your customers are telling you, that's your right...

IMHO its a lost opportunity that is turning into what you want it to turn into...

Your HOME page is the gateway to your business - your front door. Feature the best of all your departments to attract the most home page hits and resulting click-thrus to maximize traffic - reduce the roadblocks, minimize the hurdles, promote your content, make it available in three clicks or less...build a user experience that encourages repeat users... refresh content early and often, run after rumors, break the big stories, be the source quoted rather than quoting a source of a different color...refresh, refresh, refresh....and do it again.

You have a loyal and vocal fan base who you can leverage to a more successful business...its a captured market of premier programs and academic institutions where hockey means more than football, more than basketball to the institutions, students and alums...a real opportunity lost (apparently with low barriers to entry).

As the Market Leader, this is your market to lose...and you probably will by enabling others to fill your shoes - if that is ok with you then perhaps you should drop the name, change the brand and be done with us.... My guess is that is not your intention, but intentional or not, you have been served notice by those who love you (and loathe you) - its up to you - whoever you are - to listen and determine how you want to act....

 

[norm1909]

Re: NCAA championship weekend coverage

United States College Hockey Online

This brand implies you cover all college hockey with no bias due to size or gender - if its in the US and college and ice hockey, then you cover it (might want to consider a club section).

If you think you have done DIII Men's hockey justice and want to use statistics, disgruntled former employees and a tough trip to St Louis to rationalize what you do despite what your customers are telling you, that's your right...

IMHO its a lost opportunity that is turning into what you want it to turn into...

Your HOME page is the gateway to your business - your front door. Feature the best of all your departments to attract the most home page hits and resulting click-thrus to maximize traffic - reduce the roadblocks, minimize the hurdles, promote your content, make it available in three clicks or less...build a user experience that encourages repeat users... refresh content early and often, run after rumors, break the big stories, be the source quoted rather than quoting a source of a different color...refresh, refresh, refresh....and do it again.

You have a loyal and vocal fan base who you can leverage to a more successful business...its a captured market of premier programs and academic institutions where hockey means more than football, more than basketball to the institutions, students and alums...a real opportunity lost (apparently with low barriers to entry).

As the Market Leader, this is your market to lose...and you probably will by enabling others to fill your shoes - if that is ok with you then perhaps you should drop the name, change the brand and be done with us.... My guess is that is not your intention, but intentional or not, you have been served notice by those who love you (and loathe you) - its up to you - whoever you are - to listen and determine how you want to act....

+1

Though they do have a Club Section.