St. Lawrence University 2013-2014: Carey, Carey, carry us to Placid ... And beyond?

[Got 6 Want More]

Re: St. Lawrence University 2013-2014: Carey, Carey, carry us to Placid ... And beyon

But see that's the problem, they are getting people to go to the games and they're not being recognized for it Anywho, I think both teams have equal issues at this point to work on. May the better of the two issue filled teams win

I agree and it hurts us. What recruit wants to look at the box score and see 1100? Q-Peck has students at their games but its always a sell-out. Count the students. Count the full seats. But don't understate the attendance. That's just self-defeating.

 

[BrunoFan00]

Re: St. Lawrence University 2013-2014: Carey, Carey, carry us to Placid ... And beyon

So we get to play Brown. ****! Boring hockey is guaranteed. They are a team built for the playoffs. They will bore us to death. Maybe we win, maybe we don't. Brown has been better than us in the two games this season. Actually, I think we were better down there but they earned the tie.

To be frank, if Brown is playing their "boring" style - you guys will catch a break or two and end up winning 3-1, or 2-0, or something like that, presuming we score for a change. Brown has been at its best playing aggressive hockey, which won them games against Quinnipiac and Colgate. I haven't seen that style in a couple weeks, though.

The poster who mentioned Brown's biggest problem will be bouncing back after needing only one point last weekend to be playing at home - that person is dead on. If SLU starts strong, gets up early - particularly by a goal or two in the first or second period of the first game - this series is over. That said, at least Brown has some history on its side. Regardless of year, we've played well at Appleton and against SLU in general. I recall the 2005-06 playoff series, which came on the heels of 5-20 season from Brown, and then Brown scored twice in the third, including one with the goalie pulled in the third game with like 3 seconds left, to force overtime. We eventually lost, but those three games were wars, even though St. Lawrence was something like 18-10 or something like that and we were, well, not.

 

[Spaceman]

Re: St. Lawrence University 2013-2014: Carey, Carey, carry us to Placid ... And beyon

I recall the 2005-06 playoff series, which came on the heels of 5-20 season from Brown, and then Brown scored twice in the third, including one with the goalie pulled in the third game with like 3 seconds left, to force overtime. We eventually lost, but those three games were wars, even though St. Lawrence was something like 18-10 or something like that and we were, well, not.

SLU had over 50 shots in that game - http://collegehockeystats.net/0506/boxes/mbrnstl1.m05

 

[Spaceman]

Re: St. Lawrence University 2013-2014: Carey, Carey, carry us to Placid ... And beyon

On a complete side note, one that needs to be addressed somewhere is the issue with accurate attendance listings? 1,427 out of a 3,000 seat arena? I was at the Princeton game (both actually) and let me tell you that place was packed, with very few empty seats, if any. Plus, completely full around the railing in the standing room. No way are these figures accurate, no way!!! I do however know why and that is the lack of accounting for the students in attendance. I wish there was a way to correct this. Not that it affects anything playing wise, but it still just doesn't look good for those that check out the attendance figures and such. It's quite a bit annoying honestly!

For those of us who check attendance numbers around college hockey, this can be frustrating.

Along those lines, SLU's website lists Appleton as a "3,200 seat mutli-purpose arena". Link here: http://www.saintsathletics.com/sports/2013/7/15/appletonarena.aspx?tab=appletonarena . On the other hand I have seen many publications list capacity as 3,000. One link here: http://www.uscho.com/team/st-lawrence/mens-hockey/ . Not to be outdone, I have also seen comments on this forum that say Appleton holds 2,400.

While I understand that it's not a priority, it would be nice to know what the actual capacity of Appleton is these days. After a few renovations, it probably has changed over the years. Maybe this would be a nice project for a student to undertake this summer.

More to your point, of who is showing up, I too agree they should count students. I've been to a few games this year entering from the back door and seen students show their IDs and waved in. We are certainly selling ourselves and support for our team short by under counting those that attend the games.

From a pure marketing standpoint, I would think their marketing team would want to know who is purchasing tickets, who is using their tickets and who is going to the games? As I travel around to other division 1 and division 3 rinks, I've noticed many of them now using hand held scanners and reading the bar codes on tickets. This really does provide a wealth of information to the colleges to use to help market their programs.

 

[Muskieman]

Re: St. Lawrence University 2013-2014: Carey, Carey, carry us to Placid ... And beyon

For those of us who check attendance numbers around college hockey, this can be frustrating.

Along those lines, SLU's website lists Appleton as a "3,200 seat mutli-purpose arena". Link here: http://www.saintsathletics.com/sports/2013/7/15/appletonarena.aspx?tab=appletonarena . On the other hand I have seen many publications list capacity as 3,000. One link here: http://www.uscho.com/team/st-lawrence/mens-hockey/ . Not to be outdone, I have also seen comments on this forum that say Appleton holds 2,400.

While I understand that it's not a priority, it would be nice to know what the actual capacity of Appleton is these days. After a few renovations, it probably has changed over the years. Maybe this would be a nice project for a student to undertake this summer.

More to your point, of who is showing up, I too agree they should count students. I've been to a few games this year entering from the back door and seen students show their IDs and waved in. We are certainly selling ourselves and support for our team short by under counting those that attend the games.

From a pure marketing standpoint, I would think their marketing team would want to know who is purchasing tickets, who is using their tickets and who is going to the games? As I travel around to other division 1 and division 3 rinks, I've noticed many of them now using hand held scanners and reading the bar codes on tickets. This really does provide a wealth of information to the colleges to use to help market their programs.

We discussed this very thing earlier in the season on this forum. This is an absolute no-brainer to me. FIX IT!

 

[bcarlisle]

Re: St. Lawrence University 2013-2014: Carey, Carey, carry us to Placid ... And beyon

For those of us who check attendance numbers around college hockey, this can be frustrating.

Along those lines, SLU's website lists Appleton as a "3,200 seat mutli-purpose arena". Link here: http://www.saintsathletics.com/sports/2013/7/15/appletonarena.aspx?tab=appletonarena . On the other hand I have seen many publications list capacity as 3,000. One link here: http://www.uscho.com/team/st-lawrence/mens-hockey/ . Not to be outdone, I have also seen comments on this forum that say Appleton holds 2,400.

While I understand that it's not a priority, it would be nice to know what the actual capacity of Appleton is these days. After a few renovations, it probably has changed over the years. Maybe this would be a nice project for a student to undertake this summer.

More to your point, of who is showing up, I too agree they should count students. I've been to a few games this year entering from the back door and seen students show their IDs and waved in. We are certainly selling ourselves and support for our team short by under counting those that attend the games.

From a pure marketing standpoint, I would think their marketing team would want to know who is purchasing tickets, who is using their tickets and who is going to the games? As I travel around to other division 1 and division 3 rinks, I've noticed many of them now using hand held scanners and reading the bar codes on tickets. This really does provide a wealth of information to the colleges to use to help market their programs.

I don't think anyone really wants to know either the real capacity or the real attendance at Appleton. It's better to just let Wally guess... liberally.

While I'm a big believer in data in my work, I think the data at Appleton is known and unchanging.

Students in town, team doing well: 2,300
Students in town, team doing poorly: 1,900
Students not in town: 1,600 (because the townies show up rain or shine as they have been loyally for sixty four years -- it's part of the Canton genetic code)
Clarkson: 3,200

That's all you need to know. fluctuates maybe +/- 20% on any given night based on when Wally looks around.

There is no "marketing team" per se and no marketing budget beyond a few posters, the rote press releases and the team's activity in the community.

I do think Carvy has some excellent ideas on marketing the team -- he needs help funding them. Then maybe it might be worth purchasing a couple of counters -- bar code scanners seem pretty extreme to me.

The best and maybe only way to fill Appleton consistently is to win.

 

[Saints#1]

Re: St. Lawrence University 2013-2014: Carey, Carey, carry us to Placid ... And beyon

I don't think anyone really wants to know either the real capacity or the real attendance at Appleton. It's better to just let Wally guess... liberally.

While I'm a big believer in data in my work, I think the data at Appleton is known and unchanging.

Students in town, team doing well: 2,300
Students in town, team doing poorly: 1,900
Students not in town: 1,600 (because the townies show up rain or shine as they have been loyally for sixty four years -- it's part of the Canton genetic code)
Clarkson: 3,200

That's all you need to know. fluctuates maybe +/- 20% on any given night based on when Wally looks around.

There is no "marketing team" per se and no marketing budget beyond a few posters, the rote press releases and the team's activity in the community.

I do think Carvy has some excellent ideas on marketing the team -- he needs help funding them. Then maybe it might be worth purchasing a couple of counters -- bar code scanners seem pretty extreme to me.

The best and maybe only way to fill Appleton consistently is to win.

But see that's the thing ... Appleton is filled the majority of the time or at least very close to it's capacity (note how I am at either every game or most every game) ... The figures show 1,000 plus less than seating capacity, not including the standing room and their is just absolutely 100% no way that's accurate. I know for a fact that they don't count students. There is one lady selling the GA tickets to the fans and the paid tickets are counted too, but the students don't have tickets to count. They used to a few years back, but it became too big of a hassle. Now they just flash the student id and they are waived through. Nobody's counting these numbers in the attendance figures and they make up a very large portion of the actual attendance. It does no one associated with the program any good. Hopefully they can fix this ... And soon

 

[Spaceman]

Re: St. Lawrence University 2013-2014: Carey, Carey, carry us to Placid ... And beyon

It's better to just let Wally guess... liberally.

I'm sure Wally has enough on his plate. He is great at what he does and there is no reason to pile more on it. Frankly SLU has been lucky over the years to have him do more than he probably should.

 

[bcarlisle]

Re: St. Lawrence University 2013-2014: Carey, Carey, carry us to Placid ... And beyon

I'm sure Wally has enough on his plate. He is great at what he does and there is no reason to pile more on it. Frankly SLU has been lucky over the years to have him do more than he probably should.

I don't think I'm adding to Wally's plate. He's the official scorer. I think (I don't know this) that he looks around and having been at the games for 30 years, he has a good eye for the size of the crowd and his estimate goes down as official. My point is that I don't think anyone thinks there's a ton of value in counting the crowd accurately. The estimate might be under some nights, but I'm also guessing that it's over when it needs to be. I am not at the games so this is all conjecture. I do know that the first two to three rows on the SLU side generally appear to be pretty empty on the stream.

Somebody who knows once told me that Mick Jagger is generally able to estimate attendance at a Rolling Stones concert in a football stadium to within plus or minus 200 people because he's been doing it so long. He has called promoters on undercounts and has almost always been vindicated by audits -- so it's possible.

The way I see it there are 40 parents, 2,200 students, 6,000 residents of Canton and 100,000 residents of St. Lawrence County, half of whom are Clarkson fans if they are fans at all. That's the market we have to pull from on any given night. If the count were more accurate and higher as a result, I'm not sure what difference that would make to anyone. It would still be a low number by any objective standard.

That's not to say it's not worth making some added effort to fill the place on any given night

 

[slu fan]

Re: St. Lawrence University 2013-2014: Carey, Carey, carry us to Placid ... And beyon

Just heard last night that Brandon Bollig agreed to a three year contract extension with the Blackhawks for an est. three million plus.

 

[bcarlisle]

Re: St. Lawrence University 2013-2014: Carey, Carey, carry us to Placid ... And beyon

Just heard last night that Brandon Bollig agreed to a three year contract extension with the Blackhawks for an est. three million plus.

Brandon Bollig on video on his new contract extension: http://espn.go.com/chicago/nhl/stor...-agrees-contract-extension-chicago-blackhawks

Not to be outdone by TSN Bob McKenzie on Twitter who tweeted: <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Brandon Bollig's AAV on 3-year extension with CHI is $1.25M. You can buy MANY line rickeys at The Hoot Owl with $1.25M. <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23slu&src=hash">#slu</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23scaryisntit&src=hash">#scaryisntit</a></p>— Bob McKenzie (@TSNBobMcKenzie) <a href="https://twitter.com/TSNBobMcKenzie/statuses/440506582200111104">March 3, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

[Saints#1]

Re: St. Lawrence University 2013-2014: Carey, Carey, carry us to Placid ... And beyon

I don't think I'm adding to Wally's plate. He's the official scorer. I think (I don't know this) that he looks around and having been at the games for 30 years, he has a good eye for the size of the crowd and his estimate goes down as official. My point is that I don't think anyone thinks there's a ton of value in counting the crowd accurately. The estimate might be under some nights, but I'm also guessing that it's over when it needs to be. I am not at the games so this is all conjecture. I do know that the first two to three rows on the SLU side generally appear to be pretty empty on the stream.

Somebody who knows once told me that Mick Jagger is generally able to estimate attendance at a Rolling Stones concert in a football stadium to within plus or minus 200 people because he's been doing it so long. He has called promoters on undercounts and has almost always been vindicated by audits -- so it's possible.

The way I see it there are 40 parents, 2,200 students, 6,000 residents of Canton and 100,000 residents of St. Lawrence County, half of whom are Clarkson fans if they are fans at all. That's the market we have to pull from on any given night. If the count were more accurate and higher as a result, I'm not sure what difference that would make to anyone. It would still be a low number by any objective standard.

That's not to say it's not worth making some added effort to fill the place on any given night

I too have heard somewhere previously that Wally used to give the attendance figures. However, Wally doesn't give the attendance figures anymore. They go off from "paid attendance" figures. They don't count the students because they are not paid. Also, when you look at the past few years attendance figures they are very specific like 1,437 1,594 1,639 etc etc ... Previous years, when Wally was doing the count, we had figures that were rounded off like 2,600 2,700 2,850 ... I think it's pretty obvious what the difference in the figures is, this coming from someone who is at every game. The attendance hasn't changed, it's almost always full and continues to be that way. I just wish they had an accurate way of figuring the students into the numbers.

 

[Spaceman]

Re: St. Lawrence University 2013-2014: Carey, Carey, carry us to Placid ... And beyon

Speaking of Wally Johnson, who is in the College Sports Information Directors of America Hall of Fame, he is up with this weeks game notes: http://www.saintsathletics.com/custompages/brown playoff notes.pdf

 

[BigAl]

Re: St. Lawrence University 2013-2014: Carey, Carey, carry us to Placid ... And beyon

I too have heard somewhere previously that Wally used to give the attendance figures. However, Wally doesn't give the attendance figures anymore. They go off from "paid attendance" figures. They don't count the students because they are not paid. Also, when you look at the past few years attendance figures they are very specific like 1,437 1,594 1,639 etc etc ... Previous years, when Wally was doing the count, we had figures that were rounded off like 2,600 2,700 2,850 ... I think it's pretty obvious what the difference in the figures is, this coming from someone who is at every game. The attendance hasn't changed, it's almost always full and continues to be that way. I just wish they had an accurate way of figuring the students into the numbers.

How do they currently let students into the game? Must they show their school ID card? Is it swiped by the people who check tickets?

The way we do it at Q is the students must go online and claim one of 900 or so tickets. Then you must print a ticket off the site to be scanned when you walk through. This limits the number of students to the actual seats and the SRO around the student section and also allows them to count how many students attended and add it to the rest of the numbers.

Another thing that ticks me off about the attendance numbers is no school should be over 100%. Put the attendance number at how many people can actually attend the game, not how many people can sit. Skews the numbers and is stupid

 

[Spaceman]

Re: St. Lawrence University 2013-2014: Carey, Carey, carry us to Placid ... And beyon

How do they currently let students into the game? Must they show their school ID card? Is it swiped by the people who check tickets?

The student walks up and shows their student ID to the person who would take your ticket. At that point they just wave the student in. No tickets are torn, exchanged or scanned. SLU does not have bar codes on their tickets hence they do not use scanners.

As a side note, I went to a Norwich hockey game three years ago (Division three) and they used hand held scanners and scanned in tickets and season pass holders. There are far more important things for the program than this, but since we are on the subject I'm just pointing it out.

 

[BigAl]

Re: St. Lawrence University 2013-2014: Carey, Carey, carry us to Placid ... And beyon

The student walks up and shows their student ID to the person who would take your ticket. At that point they just wave the student in. No tickets are torn, exchanged or scanned. SLU does not have bar codes on their tickets hence they do not use scanners.

As a side note, I went to a Norwich hockey game three years ago (Division three) and they used hand held scanners and scanned in tickets and season pass holders. There are far more important things for the program than this, but since we are on the subject I'm just pointing it out.

That's what we use down here. Yes there are more important things but it is a relatively small change, and some pride is on the line so why not

 

[BigAl]

Re: St. Lawrence University 2013-2014: Carey, Carey, carry us to Placid ... And beyon

New contest this year: ECAC Pick the Awards. Get your picks in for whose going to win the major awards and be put on the 1,2,3 and rookie teams

 

[hockeyplayer1015]

Re: St. Lawrence University 2013-2014: Carey, Carey, carry us to Placid ... And beyon

Brown will be without Lorito, as he broke his leg against Union. Tough break for them, but it is a major scoring threat that our lack of defense won't have to try to be a pylon for.

 

[bcarlisle]

That's what we use down here. Yes there are more important things but it is a relatively small change, and some pride is on the line so why not

I consider it a point of pride that any student (or any faculty or staff member and their kids) can just flash an ID and walk in. IMO part of what makes Appleton special.
When I was a kid, I kept my Dad's faculty ID crumpled up in my pocket all season long. Put it through the laundry a few times for good measure. I'm happy to hear it's still like that.

 

[hockeyplayer1015]

I consider it a point of pride that any student (or any faculty or staff member and their kids) can just flash an ID and walk in. IMO part of what makes Appleton special.
When I was a kid, I kept my Dad's faculty ID crumpled up in my pocket all season long. Put it through the laundry a few times for good measure. I'm happy to hear it's still like that.

Absolutely agree. If a rink like Appleton were to make a move to bar code scanners, it would feel out of place and too commercialized, IMO. It has always had that old, small town barn feel to it, and its one of the many things that makes it such a great rink.