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Pegula Ice Arena - a Virtual View

Re: Pegula Ice Arena - a Virtual View

SoCalSiouxFan said:
This new rink is nice, but not enough seating for DI hockey. Good size for a division II school.

Seriously if the hockey program becomes successful you will quickly outgrow this facility.
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Michigan is D-II just based upon their arena. Got it. :rolleyes:
 
Re: Pegula Ice Arena - a Virtual View

WiscDC said:
I disagree; take a look at the capacities. Keep in mind that of the 2 biggest arenas (Ohio State and Nebraska-Omaha), neither fills it up, though UNO draws pretty well regularly and once or twice a year packs the arena.

Penn State packed their Ice Pavilion, but that was less than 2000. They drew well in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, but we'll have to wait and see what the regular crowds are week-to-week in State College. I hope it goes well for them.
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Just saying that for a large D1 school in the Big 10 conference the arena is small. Minnesota Duluth, a D II school just built a 6,600 seat arena a few years back. Like I said good size for D II.

Now if you look at the other rinks in the Big 10 conference, Minnesota seats 10,000, Wisconsin seats 15,000, and Ohio State seats 17,000. Minnesota and Wisconsin usually sell out, but attendance at Ohio State games is only about 4,000. Rinks at Michigan and Michigan state are slightly larger so actually when your new rink is completed it will be the smallest in the conference.
 
Re: Pegula Ice Arena - a Virtual View

SoCalSiouxFan said:
Just saying that for a large D1 school in the Big 10 conference the arena is small. Minnesota Duluth, a D II school just built a 6,600 seat arena a few years back. Like I said good size for D II.

Now if you look at the other rinks in the Big 10 conference, Minnesota seats 10,000, Wisconsin seats 15,000, and Ohio State seats 17,000. Minnesota and Wisconsin usually sell out, but attendance at Ohio State games is only about 4,000. Rinks at Michigan and Michigan state are slightly larger so actually when your new rink is completed it will be the smallest in the conference.
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Forget capacities, look at attendance. Assuming that it works out to exactly 6,000 seats (which, it won't - it'll be something goofy like 6,245 or something like that once the fire marshal puts the number on the building), and they sell out, they'll be 8th in the country and 3rd in the Big 10 next year, ahead of everyone not named UWisc or UMinn. This is a bad thing - why?

And to look at the bigger picture, make sure you realize that Happy Valley has a metro area of just ~150,000 people to draw from every home weekend. You throw around Duluth and their new rink with "good size for D-II." Um, you realize that metro Duluth has a population of 280,000 people? And Bulldog hockey is the #1 thing going on any given Friday or Saturday night (as opposed to D-I basketball maybe next door, or wrestling, or who knows what else)? And that before the new rink, UMD averaged just 4,500 a night? Of course you didn't realize that...
 
Re: Pegula Ice Arena - a Virtual View

Lakerblue said:
Really?

This is what all the fuss was about?

Seriously, most OHL rinks are better -- significantly better. Every former-WCHA rink is better except perhaps UAA.

Is this the face that launched a thousand ships? (Or words to that effect).
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On what basis are they better?
 
Re: Pegula Ice Arena - a Virtual View

Looks like the is-that-goal-regulation-size-or-what net is up on the near side (of the camera). No glass yet.
 
Re: Pegula Ice Arena - a Virtual View

I'm not sure I understand why this is even an issue. By my count, PIA will be the 18th-biggest rink in DI (with Denver and UMass-Lowell within 26 seats of 6,000, so you can pretty much say tied for 16th). There are 3,500 season ticket deposits in, figure the 1,000 students won't be an issue, and right there, we're 15th in attendance against 2012-13's numbers, ahead of some pretty respected programs. That's before single-game sales, etc. Selling out the season - which I don't really think will happen, to be completely honest - gets us up to 8th. What's wrong with 8th? I'd rather have a sold out and loud 6,000-seater than 7,233 in an arena of 16,680 like UNO. Even Wisconsin is having trouble filling their large building (http://www.buckys5thquarter.com/wis...-hockey-attendance-declining-at-alarming-rate).

In terms of amenities, nobody will be better, and that's what I care about since it's a recruiting tool in that respect much more than some GAAAHHH MY TEAM HAS MORE FANS THAN YOURS!!! chest beating. Even there, I'll wager that we end up with a better game atmosphere than some schools that have a bigger attendance number, in part because the arena isn't gigantic and because of things like the steep-as-code-allows student section. And if it gets to the point where the arena's no longer a novelty and we're not winning, it'll look less bad empty haha.

The guy a couple posts ago made a great point about Centre County's population too. It's a TINY area, even with the students. And this isn't football, where people can make a pilgrimage from all over seven times a year. 2012 Census estimates... Ann Arbor MSA: 350,956, Columbus MSA: 1,944,002, Madison MSA: 620,778, Minneapolis-St.Paul-Bloomington MSA: 3,422,264, Lansing-East Lansing MSA: 465,732, State College MSA: 155,171. So PSU's area is well under half the size of the second smallest Big Ten member, and that second smallest area is within commutable distance from the Detroit area, not counted in their number obviously. Having a huge alumni base, as PSU does, isn't a bad thing, but if they don't live near the school, it's tough to say that it helps attendance much. I'll be in from Ohio for most games, but I consider myself an exception.

I'll also toss in the fact that PSU's sports landscape is pretty saturated as it is, between football, men's and women's basketball, wrestling and women's volleyball. With men's hockey, that's six different sports that draw 3,000+ per game. All of those except women's volleyball (assuming men's hockey makes it) hit 5,000+. I'm guessing that there aren't too many schools that can claim something like that, especially ones with such a limited surrounding population. Point being, I don't think we can come close to filling 10,000 seats on a regular basis for hockey, and I'm okay with that. IMO, I think Wisconsin's the one doing it wrong, not us - a growing attendance problem magnified by their building's size, they don't have first dibs on access and had to build an expensive practice facility in part because of that, they get kicked out and have to move around games whenever there's a high school tournament in town.
 
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Scally Lama said:
I'm not sure I understand why this is even an issue. By my count, PIA will be the 18th-biggest rink in DI (with Denver and UMass-Lowell within 26 seats of 6,000, so you can pretty much say tied for 16th). There are 3,500 season ticket deposits in, figure the 1,000 students won't be an issue, and right there, we're 15th in attendance against 2012-13's numbers, ahead of some pretty respected programs. That's before single-game sales, etc. Selling out the season - which I don't really think will happen, to be completely honest - gets us up to 8th. What's wrong with 8th? I'd rather have a sold out and loud 6,000-seater than 7,233 in an arena of 16,680 like UNO. Even Wisconsin is having trouble filling their large building (http://www.buckys5thquarter.com/wis...-hockey-attendance-declining-at-alarming-rate).

In terms of amenities, nobody will be better, and that's what I care about since it's a recruiting tool in that respect much more than some GAAAHHH MY TEAM HAS MORE FANS THAN YOURS!!! chest beating. Even there, I'll wager that we end up with a better game atmosphere than some schools that have a bigger attendance number, in part because the arena isn't gigantic and because of things like the steep-as-code-allows student section. And if it gets to the point where the arena's no longer a novelty and we're not winning, it'll look less bad empty haha.

The guy a couple posts ago made a great point about Centre County's population too. It's a TINY area, even with the students. And this isn't football, where people can make a pilgrimage from all over seven times a year. 2012 Census estimates... Ann Arbor MSA: 350,956, Columbus MSA: 1,944,002, Madison MSA: 620,778, Minneapolis-St.Paul-Bloomington MSA: 3,422,264, Lansing-East Lansing MSA: 465,732, State College MSA: 155,171. So PSU's area is well under half the size of the second smallest Big Ten member, and that second smallest area is within commutable distance from the Detroit area, not counted in their number obviously. Having a huge alumni base, as PSU does, isn't a bad thing, but if they don't live near the school, it's tough to say that it helps attendance much. I'll be in from Ohio for most games, but I consider myself an exception.

I'll also toss in the fact that PSU's sports landscape is pretty saturated as it is, between football, men's and women's basketball, wrestling and women's volleyball. With men's hockey, that's six different sports that draw 3,000+ per game. All of those except women's volleyball (assuming men's hockey makes it) hit 5,000+. I'm guessing that there aren't too many schools that can claim something like that, especially ones with such a limited surrounding population. Point being, I don't think we can come close to filling 10,000 seats on a regular basis for hockey, and I'm okay with that. IMO, I think Wisconsin's the one doing it wrong, not us - a growing attendance problem magnified by their building's size, they don't have first dibs on access and had to build an expensive practice facility in part because of that, they get kicked out and have to move around games whenever there's a high school tournament in town.
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Exactly. The size is perfect. If the hockey is good the place will be banged out, and that is all that matters. However, I think the Ralph is the best barn in hockey....all hockey.
 
Re: Pegula Ice Arena - a Virtual View

Scally Lama said:
I'm not sure I understand why this is even an issue...
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I think everyone except for one person in this thread agrees with you.

Scally Lama said:
They get kicked out and have to move around games whenever there's a high school tournament in town.
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You're correct in that it is a big problem, but the last time that happened before last year was 2005.
 
Re: Pegula Ice Arena - a Virtual View

Scally Lama said:
I'm not sure I understand why this is even an issue.
Click to expand...

I think at this point we can ignore the troll that's just butthurt his mascot was taken away for being hostile and abusive. ;) You have a rink in progress, from what I can see with the construction cams it looks nice, and perhaps at some point RPI will be playing at Penn State (although hopefully after Koudys graduates).
 
Re: Pegula Ice Arena - a Virtual View

WiscDC said:
You're correct in that it is a big problem, but the last time that happened before last year was 2005.
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I'll plead ignorance for the most part, but FWIW, I was also thinking of moving games to odd days of the week, even if they're still at Kohl, as with our Sunday-Monday series a couple weeks before the one with St. Cloud. My memory isn't what it used to be, but I was under the impression that something along those lines happens pretty much every year.
 
Re: Pegula Ice Arena - a Virtual View

FlagDUDE08 said:
I think at this point we can ignore the troll that's just butthurt his mascot was taken away for being hostile and abusive. ;) You have a rink in progress, from what I can see with the construction cams it looks nice, and perhaps at some point RPI will be playing at Penn State (although hopefully after Koudys graduates).
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Yeah, I probably didn't need to go off to that extent for just one guy! Oh well.

Here's hoping for a series at some point, RPI's one of my favorite programs. It's not happening this year, and Koudys only has one left after that, so probably not too much of a concern there. But yeah, I'll call some people about 2015-16. ;)
 
Re: Pegula Ice Arena - a Virtual View

Scally Lama said:
I'll plead ignorance for the most part, but FWIW, I was also thinking of moving games to odd days of the week, even if they're still at Kohl, as with our Sunday-Monday series a couple weeks before the one with St. Cloud. My memory isn't what it used to be, but I was under the impression that something along those lines happens pretty much every year.
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Well, they'll do that before a move to the Coliseum, but more often than not, they're able to avoid those issues. (Again, it still sucks.)
 
moose97 said:
Forget capacities, look at attendance. Assuming that it works out to exactly 6,000 seats (which, it won't - it'll be something goofy like 6,245 or something like that once the fire marshal puts the number on the building), and they sell out, they'll be 8th in the country and 3rd in the Big 10 next year, ahead of everyone not named UWisc or UMinn. This is a bad thing - why?

And to look at the bigger picture, make sure you realize that Happy Valley has a metro area of just ~150,000 people to draw from every home weekend. You throw around Duluth and their new rink with "good size for D-II." Um, you realize that metro Duluth has a population of 280,000 people? And Bulldog hockey is the #1 thing going on any given Friday or Saturday night (as opposed to D-I basketball maybe next door, or wrestling, or who knows what else)? And that before the new rink, UMD averaged just 4,500 a night? Of course you didn't realize that...
Click to expand...

Exactly. The size of the rink is fine. If they fill it with fans, and all indications from this season is they will regularly, the atmosphere should be great too.
 
Re: Pegula Ice Arena - a Virtual View

Scally Lama said:
In terms of amenities, nobody will be better, and that's what I care about since it's a recruiting tool in that respect much more than some GAAAHHH MY TEAM HAS MORE FANS THAN YOURS!!! chest beating. Even there, I'll wager that we end up with a better game atmosphere than some schools that have a bigger attendance number, in part because the arena isn't gigantic and because of things like the steep-as-code-allows student section.
Click to expand...

Back before Bemidji State's rink opened, people said, "I don't care if we sacrifice some game day stuff if the money is spent on the student athletes." Then, of course, the rink opened and the first few games (which, admittedly was a rush job to finish up - heck, it was a 15 month construction schedule) people were complaining that the light show wasn't ready yet! At that point, I reminded them that just two years earlier, they themselves were the ones saying they'd sacrifice "game day" for recruiting advantage...
 
Re: Pegula Ice Arena - a Virtual View

moose97 said:
Back before Bemidji State's rink opened, people said, "I don't care if we sacrifice some game day stuff if the money is spent on the student athletes." Then, of course, the rink opened and the first few games (which, admittedly was a rush job to finish up - heck, it was a 15 month construction schedule) people were complaining that the light show wasn't ready yet! At that point, I reminded them that just two years earlier, they themselves were the ones saying they'd sacrifice "game day" for recruiting advantage...
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But people complain just because they can.
 
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