Chuck Murray
WIS & Effingwoods Hockey Almanac
Actually, this really didn't happen at the time. The seating capacity for what was eventually to be called the Whittemore Center was close to double that of the existing facility across the lobby (an addition to join the new arena to what would eventually become the Hamel Recreation Center, which occupies the previous Snively footprint), so there was a huge question mark initially regarding UNH's ability to fill those seats, and that concern probably kept any ticket price increases to a relatively modest amount. There is also a limited amount of corporate seating at the new arena - then and now - so that never really became an issue, not even nowadays.
I'll always remember that originally, UNH's "solution" to trying to fill the delta between past capacity and 3,000 or so new seats was to run ads in the print media (the Internet was still in its infancy at the time) IN BOSTON - and quite possibly Portland? - trying to market partial season ticket packages to fans of the other Hockey East schools. Not for the first OR last time, UNH seemed to underestimate the draw of its hockey program as a revenue generator, and seemed genuinely surprised when the demand for tickets inside the 603 (and also from southern York County ME) resulted in regular full houses, and after not too long, the out-of-town ads in print media went away. And when the new arena smell wore off, it was the glory years of UNH Hockey that followed for the next decade-plus to keep the place banged out.
An interesting aside was that for the first few years of its existence, UNH also had their Men's and Women's Hoops team playing their games in the new arena. There was some initial curiosity ("new car smell") but after that died out, the crowds dwindled, and were moved back across the street to Lundholm Gym, where they remain to the present day. So attendance was definitely tied there to quality of the on-ice/on-court product, and ticket prices were (still are) lower for Hoops than Hockey - even if UNH inherited the old original Boston Garden parquet floor and hoop stanchions (?) for its use at The Whitt, it was just another curiosity factor that went away.
UNH did eventually get out over their skis a little too much in the early '00's when they maxed out on a multi-thousand person wait list for season tickets, and started coming up with creative/silly fee concepts too numerous to outline here, which leveraged season ticket holders to maintain their status ... and of course, when the wait list gradually melted and went away, and attendances drifted south of capacity, leverage disappeared, and to be fair, UNH Hockey ticket prices really haven't varied that much. But with inflation now in play (thanks Brandon!), and the program *maybe* on the rebound, we'll see if that changes?
