Thanks Ref for the article about Casey. I wish him the best.
I also saw the sad note that sonar is giving up hockey tickets for new seats at stadium. I am a season ticket holder for both and unhappily paid 900 dollars for 5 games with seat backs near the 40 yard line. I paid 120 dollars last year per seat for 6 games. I have been a fan of UNH football for years and 450 dollars for two seats and 5 games is not the same as 618 dollars for 2 seats to 18-20 men's hockey games. The talent level in hockey is far greater than our football program even when we are winning 11 games and it is far more exciting. Even 8-12 year old kids prefer our hockey team to watching football as they see it as boring as do 80% of the fans who buy tickets and get drunk in the parking lot. Athletics is selling bench seating on the new side for 175 dollars per seat without a parking pass. My seats come with a parking pass for every 2 seats with seat backs and they are not yet sold out (that is 600-650 seats total). The club seats are selling well and I do hope that the stadium is full but the product is nowhere near our hockey team as it never has been and never will be. My seats from last year on the now visitors side sell for 175 dollars for 5 games. This is a one year deal as they need to be in compliance with ADA soon. I hope our football team is very competitive this year and I will be rooting for them.
I know there are true haters of Umile and the hockey program out there and I know many of you think you could do a lot better. We have excellent talent coming in as top hockey schools have recruited against us for some of the incoming players and there are none of our football players that were offered D1 (BCS) scholarships that I am aware of. Coach Mac is great and I am sorry they did not put seat backs for all of the seats on the new home side. Apparently, they ran out of money. It is sad that we always come up short for our nationally competitive teams. You can buy 5 games for 95 dollars on the visitors side without seatbacks and those are the seats that will likely be sold and they will all be sitting in the seatbacks I had last year as few of those will be sold for 35 dollars per seat per game. When you come to your seat and someone with 95 dollar tickets when you paid 225 for yours, will lead to the same animosity as we have at the hockey rink.
Please reconsider if you are giving up your hockey tickets as we need everyone possible to continue the fan base. It would be great if they lowered the prices for men's hockey season ticket holders as we are a bit higher than average in hockey east while we are no longer a top 4 team every year as we were for 20+ years. I like Lowell's pricing best as prime seats are 245, faculty staff are 195, senior citizens are 180 and children are 130. I believe ticket sales would increase dramatically if the admin would buy into a model like Lowell's. BU, BC and Notre Dame have season tickets close to or a little bit higher than our tickets. Vermont (a little higher) and Maine (255-325)are fairly close to our current pricing structure with differential pricing. Merrimack is an aberration as there ticket prices are as high as BU's best seats. The rough average for all hockey east schools is about 280-285 dollars. Northeastern, CT, Amherst, Providence and Lowell are well below the average. State schools rough average is about 250-255 dollars.
Danny Tirone is a very good goalie with a save percentage above .906 last year with a very porous defense. I hope our defense improves early in the season. Most of the schedule is now public (there are a couple AHA teams not yet announced on hockey schedule thread) and we will need Danny and Adam to be at their best early on, but the defensemen will be better in the defensive zone. I cannot say that our offense will click from day 1, but I believe we will score a lot of goals in the first half of the season and hopefully that will breed confidence.
The top two defensive pairings are probably set and I hope Maller is healthy and Chanter gets a legitimate chance.
There is a lot of offensive talent and maybe the coaches will think outside of the box this year. Will they play a freshman on the first line? Senior on fourth line? Will Salvaggio with one of the best shots on the team get top 6 slot? Will McNicholas have a breakout year with his immense offensive talent and will he play better defense in the zone? I know some of you would prefer they play the freshmen on the first line and there are 3-4 top end freshmen with offensive talent and Blackburn will likely be a top 6 and maybe others. Andrew Poruralski was a huge loss who played through injury the entire second half of the season and in the AHL. It kills me when people on the board belittle his talents. He was worth 4+ additional wins and kept us competitive even when all teams were brutally assaulting him on a regular basis. Thank you Andrew for being an All-American your sophomore year at UNH. Please send your relatives/friends from the Buffalo area to UNH and good luck in the NHL.
I know the players read the UNH thread more than they should and I laughed when they brought up a few usernames (a few that use their real name) and mentioned that they need to get a life and they know nothing about hockey and with fans like that who needs enemies. They know we are mostly novices when it comes to hockey and appreciate the true fans both at home and on the road. I will miss all of the graduating seniors from last year as they are fine young men who worked hard on the ice and in the classroom. Thankfully, they all have a sense of humor and leave loving UNH, Durham and the fans for such a wonderful experience. Good luck to you all in Europe, AHL, ECHL and further educational endeavours. Best to you all and your families.
I hope I will see you all at the Whit this fall. I hope they have less TV games and please get off to a great start Coach Umile, Coach Souza and Coach Stuart. Maybe we can get to 600 this year and if you win 24 games the Whit will not be empty.
while his leaning on AC in net made for interesting reading. 
