Re: NCHC: The Most Elite Conference in the Country
Maybe you can answer this. Why are some of the best seats (location) at Magness essentially folding chairs? They spent $75 million on the facility (that is what I was told anyway, not sure how much of that went towards Magness)...you would think they could have put in nicer seats. If they ever decide to expand the arena, I would hope that they would put nice seats in.
The folding chairs are in the first few rows that are moved when the hockey arena is converted to a basketball arena. You can see them moved during this time lapse video. It costs $500,000 to convert Magness Arena from Hockey to Hoops each year and the conversion is done 120 times per year.
http://letsgodu.blogspot.com/2010/02/magness-makeover-ice-to-hoops-floor.html
The Ritchie Center cost $77 million in 1998 dollars. I believe the Magness family gave $10 million and Dan Ritchie gave a significant sum but there is still a note on the facility. So the Ritchie Center was never paid off in full and quite frankly quite a few things in Magness Arena were done on the cheap. Lighting, sound, chairs, no luxury boxes, too many end zone seats and decor. But the plan was always to knock out the far wall and finish the arena at some point in the future. Its a good thing they built the arena when they did because it would probably cost $120 million today, Magness has since passed away, Ritchie has moved on, the economy tanked, DU would almost certainly be in the "new" WCHA and CC or UND would of won the 2005 NC.
DU has hockey locker room renovation coming up within the year.
Magness was built with private dollars at a time when DU didn't have any billionaire alums to tap. Considering that the two largest donors were Ritchie and Magness, who weren't DU alums, its a miracle it was built at all. I would rank the facility excellent for hoops, offices, press boxes, swimming, working out and "fitting in on campus - Its a beautiful building. For hockey, they probably need to pump in $20-40 million for the scoreboard, lighting, sound and finish the seating.
All things being equal, we're luck to have the facility on campus and it certainly has enough bells & whistles to attract recruits.