The NCHC: Just be glad its NaCHo League

[bronconick]

Re: The NCHC: Just be glad its NaCHo League

I just checked out a half dozen non-overtime random DU games this season over at www.collegehockeystats.net. They're all around 2:30.

Then I went back to 2004-05 and they are all around 2:13.

The NFL shortened their games and NCAA football followed suit recently.

If you want to grow the game, get people in and out of the arena in around 2 hours.

Don't know about the WCHA, but the CCHA mandated full "TV timeouts" at the 1st whistle after 14/11/6 of each period a few years ago for all games, even for the 90% of games not on TV. That would be a part of it.

 

[William Blake]

Re: The NCHC: Just be glad its NaCHo League

Between Kalamazoo and Westnedge and Water and Park, IIRC.

Here's an old-arse article about it. Like I said, it hasn't been brought up since they declined to put it on the 2010 ballot saying "We don't think we can convince the people this is a good thing." that summer.

http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2009/07/local_arena.html

Oh, pretty close to the Amtrak station? Can't imagine that would be fun to drive around on game days.

 

[dggoddard]

Re: The NCHC: Just be glad its NaCHo League

Driving distances, traffic patterns and parking access won't change much in the next couple years, and nothing much can be done to change them anyway. However, current and prospective T.V. revenue probably had a major part in the N.D. decision to join H.E. and in membership decisions made by the new leagues. Network T.V. contracts are where the big money is, but there has been little discussion or even speculation on this site about network T.V. contracts and the new leagues. For the last 60 years the growth and development of sports has been dictated by the growth and development of T.V.. College hockey is not immune to this reality - and T.V. broadcasts will surely change the length and pace of hockey games.

Anything to shorten the length of the games will be welcomed in my book.

Almost every college hockey game you see on TV is paid for in part by the schools or leagues participating. Even the National TV games. usually the schools or leagues buy back advertising time or they cover all or part of the production costs.

The Gophers are the only school that has received any money from FoxSports-North and that amount is relatively small.

Notre Dame got the NBC Sports Network deal as a way to cross-promote Notre Dame football & perhaps to a smaller degree the network coverage of NHL hockey. The same reason the Network televised ND's Blue Gold scrimmage last weekend.

The audiences are becoming more and more fragmented and who's to say in the future there won't be 10,000 or 100,000 networks. Every school will televise every one of their games in every sport.

 

[dggoddard]

Re: The NCHC: Just be glad its NaCHo League

Don't know about the WCHA, but the CCHA mandated full "TV timeouts" at the 1st whistle after 14/11/6 of each period a few years ago for all games, even for the 90% of games not on TV. That would be a part of it.

Agreed. Is the break one or two minutes?

 

[uaafanblog]

Re: The NCHC: Just be glad its NaCHo League

Anything to shorten the length of the games will be welcomed in my book.

Your book = "hOCkEy4nUBs: or Pandering To Morons Who Don't Get It"

The WCHA mandated TV timeouts are 5, 10 and 15 of each period and are one minute long.

 

[huskyfan]

Re: The NCHC: Just be glad its NaCHo League

ah yes, the announcement to announce the upcoming announcement. the world stops and waits.

 

[Fighting Sioux 23]

Re: The NCHC: Just be glad its NaCHo League

ah yes, the announcement to announce the upcoming announcement. the world stops and waits.

Rumors had been swirling that they were going to announce that there would be an announcement to announce a future announcement...it was the right thing to do.

 

[Dirty]

Re: The NCHC: Just be glad its NaCHo League

Don't be bitter that people care enough about the NCHC that things they do warrant coverage. Perhaps if the nWCHA works hard enough and is successful enough they too one day will warrant coverage.

 

[bronconick]

Re: The NCHC: Just be glad its NaCHo League

Agreed. Is the break one or two minutes?

I think it's 2. Usually heard 3-4 commercials on the radio for those timeouts.

 

[SoCalSiouxFan]

Re: The NCHC: Just be glad its NaCHo League

Miami has a brand new building and its beautiful. No need to do anything there.

They sell out every game and if they are missing out on any revenue that's their problem.

Oxford Ohio is a very small town and there's not really a need to have more seating.

Looks like a nice practice facility.

Selling out every game implies more seating is needed.

Grand Forks, North Dakota is small yet they have 12,000 in attendance at some games.

Miami is close to Cincinnati. Population of Butler county is 368 thousand and growing. Also Miami has an enrollment of 16,000, which is more than UND's enrollment.

 

[4four4]

Re: The NCHC: Just be glad its NaCHo League

The lighting fine when you're in the building, its also fine for basketball on TV.

For some reason hockey in Magness looks like crap on TV because of the lighting. I'm starting to wonder if they didn't buy some sort of energy saving lights, because its looking like that was the problem with the Chiller.

I absolutely hate watching games televised from Magness!!! It stinks, stinks, stinks, stinks, stinks, stinks, stinks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[MUhawks628]

Re: The NCHC: Just be glad its NaCHo League

Looks like a nice practice facility.

Selling out every game implies more seating is needed.

Grand Forks, North Dakota is small yet they have 12,000 in attendance at some games.

Miami is close to Cincinnati. Population of Butler county is 368 thousand and growing. Also Miami has an enrollment of 16,000, which is more than UND's enrollment.

I should probably just save this post since this is at least the 6th time I've embarked upon explaning how college hockey in southern Ohio works to Minnesota/North Dakota posters.

If Grand Forks is small, Oxford is miniscule.

A sold at game at Goggin is 15% of Oxford's population - no metro area (21,000)
A sold out game at UND is 12% of Grand Forks' metro population (98,461)

Miami will never draw "casual" fans from Cincinnati so talking about Butler County is irrelevant for a few reasons.

1) Very few people in Ohio, outside of Columbus, watch hockey. We're talking knowing what offsides is qualifies you as an expert among your friends when you go to that first game freshman year.
2) Even if there was a vauge intrest in Miami hockey outside students and alumni, it would be competing against Cincinnati & Xavier hoops, UC football, and the Bengals. Far more appealing events for the average Ohioan to spend their money on.
3) For all intents and purposes there are zero Miami alumni in Oxford. Our alumni base is spread out among an accessible fan base in Cincinnati (40m-1.5h away), and then Columbus (2.5h), The Mistake By the Lake (5h), and Chicago (5h) - not so accessible.

At least from what I gather on here, Sioux hockey is life/culture/the center of the universe/Zach Parise in North Dakota. For better or worse, that is not and never will be the case at Miami, so enrollment isn't really a factor.

The original plans for Goggin called for a 4,000 seat arena. There were some issues during construction that ended up decreasing the capacity a bit, but with standing room only tickets the actual capacity is still around 4,000.


At the end of the day, we very much enjoy our high school arena/practice facility/whatever. It's not going anywhere.

 

[bronconick]

Re: The NCHC: Just be glad its NaCHo League

I should probably just save this post since this is at least the 6th time I've embarked upon explaning how college hockey in southern Ohio works to Minnesota/North Dakota posters.

You'd think someone whose screenname implies they're in southern California would understand the different ratios of hockey fans in different parts of the country.

 

[Fighting Sioux 23]

Re: The NCHC: Just be glad its NaCHo League

A sold at game at Goggin is 15% of Oxford's population - no metro area (21,000)
A sold out game at UND is 12% of Grand Forks' metro population (98,461)

I agree with the rest of your post, and the points that you make, but if you are going to compare this statistic then you should compare apples to apples (no metro to no metro). Grand Forks' population is 52,838. A sold out game at UND is over 20% of the city population. Of course, a sold out game in Bemidji (population ~13,000) is over 1/3 of the population.

However you look at it, Miami's arena is very nice, and obviously meets the needs of the area/program. Why should Miami build a 12,000 seat rink of they couldn't sell it out? That would be wasteful and idiotic. It would be akin to North Dakota building a 50,000 seat football stadium.

 

[MUhawks628]

Re: The NCHC: Just be glad its NaCHo League

I agree with the rest of your post, and the points that you make, but if you are going to compare this statistic then you should compare apples to apples (no metro to no metro). Grand Forks' population is 52,838. A sold out game at UND is over 20% of the city population. Of course, a sold out game in Bemidji (population ~13,000) is over 1/3 of the population.

Miami's metro vs no metro number would be just about the same since we are in the middle of a corn field (literally). I figured since Wikipedia included a metropolitian figure for Grand Forks those extra 45k were within a reasonable distance of the city, but fair enough point.

 

[darker98]

Re: The NCHC: Just be glad its NaCHo League

Miami's metro vs no metro number would be just about the same since we are in the middle of a corn field (literally). I figured since Wikipedia included a metropolitian figure for Grand Forks those extra 45k were within a reasonable distance of the city, but fair enough point.

Well the 2 closest towns have only about 300 people in them. They might be adding E. Grand Forks to the Metro population, but that is a Minnesota city.

 

[Biddco]

Re: The NCHC: Just be glad its NaCHo League

While not part of the Grand Fork metro area, Fargo is only an hour south. I would guess that their are many Sioux fans who make the one hour drive north for games.

 

[stuckinwi]

Re: The NCHC: Just be glad its NaCHo League

Well the 2 closest towns have only about 300 people in them. They might be adding E. Grand Forks to the Metro population, but that is a Minnesota city.

One of the biggest Sioux fans I know is from E. Grand Forks... so you can't count them all out.

 

[darker98]

Re: The NCHC: Just be glad its NaCHo League

One of the biggest Sioux fans I know is from E. Grand Forks... so you can't count them all out.

That is true. There are a lot of Sioux fans in EGF, but there are Gopher fans there too.

 

[darker98]

Re: The NCHC: Just be glad its NaCHo League

While not part of the Grand Fork metro area, Fargo is only an hour south. I would guess that their are many Sioux fans who make the one hour drive north for games.

This is also true and I've bought tickets to a sold out game that came from someone in Fargo.