Since you guys are next up on our plate, I thought I'd give your thread a once over. Sheesh, there sure seems to be a lot of angst in your thread. Opened a a brand new arena, won the title, and are currently #1 as I write this, and, by a wide margin that that. Yet, all the discourse is about what seems to be what's wrong.
I don't agree with the too big argument, really, as far as your arena is concerned, having been to Amsoil and seeing it first hand during the season-ending UNO/UMD series last year. I do think you guys lose sight of the sheer amount of hockey that is available to be watched and gone to up in that neck of the woods. In the general area you have Minnesota, Minnesota State Mankato, Bemidji State, St, Cloud State, heck, even Wisconsin and North Dakota, and that's just D-1. Throw the MIAC in there and that's a
lot of hockey and a lot of competition for hockey dollars. Let's not even get into how close you are to the Canadian border. You're going to have to be that good or close for a long time to get that place full
every night.
There
are some digs (not many) I have with your arena. First, to drink alcohol, you have to go over to the Curling Club to do so. If any of you come to Omaha in two weeks, at one end of the Clink (what the CenturyLink Center, formerly known as the Qwest Center, is now called) you'll find an enormous full service bar (the Bud Bar) with a sweeping commanding view of the arena and the ice. Alcohol is widely available arena-wide, anyway. I also don't like the fact that there are no restrooms and no concessions in the upper level of Amsoil. I also thought the concourses were a tad narrow. There also seemed to be a fair amount of wasted space in the arena, design-wise. By that I mean that, in the given space, there actually could have been more seating than there is, even. Be that as it may, at 6,742 capacity, if you are planning on being one of the big dogs, that is not an unreasonable size, IMHO. Here in Omaha, everybody is petrified that we might build a new arena that isn't a whole lot bigger than that. Thankfully, its looking more and more like we may stay where we are and the school will build the practice facility it so desperately needs instead. There certainly is nothing wrong with the City of Duluth itself, either, other than maybe it's relatively small size in the current WCHA hierarchy as opposed to the level of hockey exposure in the area as mentioned above. My wife and I were both favorably impressed with your town (the first trip for both of us despite having family all over the state) and the boss thought it would be a fun place to come back to in the summertime, some time.
You guys need to chill. Your glass if half full, not half empty.
If you didn't already know it, UNO is pulling out all the stops for the Friday the 13th game:
http://www.selloutduluth.com/sell-out.htm
The Clink seats 16,680 for hockey. More than 10,000 seats have been sold for the game, already. Oh, and, its on national television, too, on the brand new NBC Sports Channel (formerly Versus), hence the oddball 6:37 P.M. start. If you watched Bob Costas on their premiere broadcast last night doing the "History of NBC Sports" television show that they ran several times, you would have seen NBC doing promos for that Friday night telecast during the show.
Still waiting for my ice cream from the 3-5-11 game. Make mine Bulldog flavor, please.
Anybody coming here for the weekend? My wife and I feel we owe UMD fans for being so kind to us on our trip there. We had beers both nights with Jack Connolly's parents in the Curling Club (Mark & Judy?) and we didn't really feel all that out of place in that sea of maroon and gold.
UNO's season is going to be made or not that weekend. If we have tourney aspirations, that is.