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UNH Wildcats 2016 Offseason Thread - Searching for Direction

Re: UNH Wildcats 2016 Offseason Thread - Searching for Direction

HockeyRef said:
For those of you who knew him best:

http://www.insidehalton.com/sports-story/6848389-retirement-looming-for-haydar-/
Click to expand...

The Hockey News’ AHL Player of the Decade (for 2000's). Talk about a mixed blessing.

Great D-1 player whose career overlapped the two separate back-to-back UNH Frozen Four teams.

Makes me feel that much older, knowing his playing career is close to an end.

All the best for an exciting player who kept his nose clean, and was a key cog at the program's apex.
 
Re: UNH Wildcats 2016 Offseason Thread - Searching for Direction

Hey, say what you will, but the new stadium looks great on TV (NESN). Lights thingies and all.

Unfortunately, Holy Cross leads UNH 21-13 early in the second half. Big home team comeback coming!
 
Chuck Murray said:
The Hockey News’ AHL Player of the Decade (for 2000's). Talk about a mixed blessing.

Great D-1 player whose career overlapped the two separate back-to-back UNH Frozen Four teams.

Makes me feel that much older, knowing his playing career is close to an end.

All the best for an exciting player who kept his nose clean, and was a key cog at the program's apex.
Click to expand...

He's gotta make the cut for the top 75 in that top 100 collegiate hockey players, don't'cha think? If not, I concede that you will win the over/under of 5 UNH players.
 
Re: UNH Wildcats 2016 Offseason Thread - Searching for Direction

Joe Sacco will receive Hobey Baker fan votes before his time at UNH is finished. You read it here first.

Three weeks!
 
Chuck Murray said:
Hey, say what you will, but the new stadium looks great on TV (NESN). Lights thingies and all.

Unfortunately, Holy Cross leads UNH 21-13 early in the second half. Big home team comeback coming!
Click to expand...


Looked great in person too!13,242 attendence! The video board was awesome too! Great night to be a Wildcat!
 
e.cat said:
Looked great in person too!13,242 attendence! The video board was awesome too! Great night to be a Wildcat!
Click to expand...

We are doing a "Wildcat" weekend of sorts Oct 1,2 football Sat/ Hockey Sunday! Looking forward to seeing the new fball stadium, vid board, etc...
 
Re: UNH Wildcats 2016 Offseason Thread - Searching for Direction

Wildcat Stadium lives up to its hype, big time. Just a totally new atmosphere now at football games! Total class facility, from the concession services to the gorgeous HD video board. Homecoming is going to be HUGE this year.

UNH Dining Services runs the concessions and will be running concessions at The Whitt as well. If what they are offering at Wildcat Stadium is any indication, expect big improvements at home hockey games this year!
 
Scott said:
Wildcat Stadium lives up to its hype, big time. Just a totally new atmosphere now at football games! Total class facility, from the concession services to the gorgeous HD video board. Homecoming is going to be HUGE this year.

UNH Dining Services runs the concessions and will be running concessions at The Whitt as well. If what they are offering at Wildcat Stadium is any indication, expect big improvements at home hockey games this year!
Click to expand...

Hope that the Whitt still offers fish chowdah.
 
Re: UNH Wildcats 2016 Offseason Thread - Searching for Direction

e.cat said:
Looked great in person too!13,242 attendence! The video board was awesome too! Great night to be a Wildcat!
Click to expand...

For those keeping count ... that's about twice as many folks in the new Stadium as the capacity in The Whitt. So if it wasn't official that Hockey has fallen to second place, I think it's official after last night. Congrats to Coach MacDonnell, his coaches, players and the fans too. I remember the great vibe in The Whitt when it first opened, and it's nice to see it happening again for a deserving Football program.

It will be interesting to see if they can keep that number north of 10,000-12,000 consistently as the season plays out. But it sounds like the product off the field was better than expected, and the on-field product continues to be very entertaining (and quite successful too).

Out of total curiosity ... when Hockey was regularly selling out The Whitt plus standing room over a decade ago, how long was the much-discussed waiting list for season tickets? :confused: I've heard what I would consider reliable estimates in the 1,500-3,000 range, which even at its height wouldn't necessarily have matched what Football drew last night. And yeah, I get it, Opening Night only happens once for a new facility, everyone wants to be there, etc. I wonder, if the success across the street continues on the gridiron, how long it will be before they're discussing stadium expansion? Plenty of room for that, for sure. Just a question about if the demand is there to support it.

Remember when we first wondered about demand to fill The Whitt, and then speculated about arena expansion?

God, those days seem SO long ago and far away now ... :(
 
Re: UNH Wildcats 2016 Offseason Thread - Searching for Direction

Chuck

Congratulations to you and the hard working people at the ticket office for the great turnout for the opener. I must admit that it was far greater than I would have predicted. There were 13,242 tickets issued but most of the upper class students and many other younger fans go for the parking lot festivities. The stadium capacity is 11,015 and the now visitors side was essentially empty (let us be generous and say that 1000 of the 5000 seats) were filled. The student turnout was the best ever but all of the prior best ever were due to giving away goodies and that is what they show up for and then many leave and that is what happened in the second half. I am optimistic about our football team but struggling against Holy Cross is not what the coaches were hoping for. HC had less than half the players dressed and they did not have replacements like UNH and they were crushing us until the second half. Realistically, there were about 7000 people in the stadium, which I agree is more than the Whit. There will likely be around 20,000 people on homecoming/parents weekend on October 1. We shall see how it goes after that game.

I am not ready to anoint the football program as king of the athletic department just yet. There are very few season ticket holders for football (the big spenders in the luxury boxes up top pay $500 for seat and $100 per game and get parking right behind the stands about 400-500 seats) and the seatbacks in the lower deck (about 600 seats that are mostly sold out at $225 per season ($45 per game). Many of the hockey season ticket holders sit in the lower bowl as high rollers are from the corporate world or from Dean's offices for each of the colleges at UNH. There are essentially no season tickets for the bench seating on the new side or the seat backs on the old side as they are $175 for the season ($35 per game). Most buy the general admission for $95 for the year and sit wherever they want where there is an open seat. They sold a lot of $12 tickets for seniors, kids, UNH employees and many other options. The big money maker is Boulder Field Parking as seat back holders have one pass built in for every two seats, but others have to donate $500 to buy a pass to the lot for $75 for the year. Homecoming tickets are $40 and up and they will get it. We had 18,000 show up for homecoming last year with about 2,500 coming into the stadium at some point.

I am happy Chuck you are all in on football and I hope they are never on NESN again as the game was almost 4 hours long. I hope to see you at the games and if you won't buy a ticket send me a note and I will leave one at will call for you.

Please start writing about hockey on this hockey fan website as we have some great freshmen forwards coming in and the junior class should step up this year. Say nice things about Umile over his last two years as UNH head coach. Please make your way to the whit as there are a lot of empty seats at present thanks to the haters who think we should be in the hunt for national championship every year, fueled by hammerheads that either never or infrequently go to games.

I hope to see you all at the rink on 10/2 at 4 pm for the exhibition game. If you can come to homecoming on 10/1, you will be in town anyway. Enjoy the cool weather!
 
Re: UNH Wildcats 2016 Offseason Thread - Searching for Direction

Thanks for your thoughts and insight into the outlook for attendance across the street, '32. We'll have to agree to disagree on which program sits atop the UNH Athletics pyramid for now, though. Although I'm obviously enthusiastic and happy for the football program nowadays (and it wasn't always like that - just ask e-cat), I'm still a hockey guy first. But I'm trying to be objective here, and the evidence just seems to be accumulating that Football has overtaken Hockey in the hearts and minds of UNH students at the very least, and with the numbers expected for Homecoming, it sounds like the alums are shifting in favor of Football as well (most likely due to on-field results).

I'll start writing about the hockey side once the games begin. I'm not like some of the recruiting enthusiasts on here who follow that side of the sport more closely, and some of whom even see these guys play in person before they arrive on campus. They provide a great service to the rest of us, and we're all thankful for their efforts. But I can't pretend to be one of them. The last time I did that was circa 2001 when Eddie Caron (a Round 2 draft pick for Edmonton at the time) was skating for PEA, and a few of us from these boards decided to check out his progress on a quiet Saturday afternoon. Scored a pair of goals, looked like a man among boys ... and we all know how that turned out. In retrospect, there were a dozen reasons why it didn't work. But the point is, as much as these guys on here follow the recruiting side - and they provide a great service to us who don't follow that side so closely - you just never know what's going to happen until these guys start playing. Or don't start playing 'cuz that's just not the way Coach does things.

But thankfully the games aren't that far off now, and looking at the 2016 portion of the schedule, UNH really has zero excuses not to put a huge dent in what remains of the "March/Stagger to 600" and hit the break well above .500. I haven't seen so many cupcakes in one place since my last trip to the bakery. But it won't mean jack unless they post a respectable second half of the season, and give the recruiting side some level of success to point to in attempts to get UNH back on the map as a destination for the top recruits going forwards. Let's face it ... over the last decade - the world known by these recruits - UNH and UMaine are the two big negative movers in the league. Watching the program over the last decade has been like watching a car crash in slow motion. And I'm only hoping that last season was the point of impact, and not just the part where we close our eyes before the REAL impact occurs. JMHO.
 
Re: UNH Wildcats 2016 Offseason Thread - Searching for Direction

Chuck Murray said:
For those keeping count ... that's about twice as many folks in the new Stadium as the capacity in The Whitt. So if it wasn't official that Hockey has fallen to second place, I think it's official after last night. Congrats to Coach MacDonnell, his coaches, players and the fans too. I remember the great vibe in The Whitt when it first opened, and it's nice to see it happening again for a deserving Football program.

It will be interesting to see if they can keep that number north of 10,000-12,000 consistently as the season plays out. But it sounds like the product off the field was better than expected, and the on-field product continues to be very entertaining (and quite successful too).

Out of total curiosity ... when Hockey was regularly selling out The Whitt plus standing room over a decade ago, how long was the much-discussed waiting list for season tickets? :confused: I've heard what I would consider reliable estimates in the 1,500-3,000 range, which even at its height wouldn't necessarily have matched what Football drew last night. And yeah, I get it, Opening Night only happens once for a new facility, everyone wants to be there, etc. I wonder, if the success across the street continues on the gridiron, how long it will be before they're discussing stadium expansion? Plenty of room for that, for sure. Just a question about if the demand is there to support it.

Remember when we first wondered about demand to fill The Whitt, and then speculated about arena expansion?

God, those days seem SO long ago and far away now ... :(
Click to expand...

I dunno what game UNH1932 was at but the visitors side was far from "virtually empty" and had many more than 1000 fans. The stadium had many more than 7000 fans right down to the wire of a hard fought win against a good Holy Cross team. All thanks to your efforts Chuck. I must have missed something because I didn't realize you gave up your day job to promote UNH football but kudos to you!

This fight about whether football or hockey is numero uno at UNH is laughable. Who cares?
 
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