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UVM 2018-19: This is so sad Alex play Esposito

Re: UVM 2018-19: This is so sad Alex play Esposito

GreenCat said:
Not sure what is up with college hockey? Watching Merrimack at UNH on NESN and the stadium is 60%+ empty. Lived in that area in the 90s and you could not get tickets. Granted they were a top 10 team nationally every year back then. Is it dilution with more programs or just hockey east losing its edge? UVM used to be a tough ticket with constant sell outs but no more.
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Hmmm, I don't think it's the dilution thing or hockey east losing its edge. Maybe it's just that there's more to do today than there was back in the day. When I was at UVM in the mid 80's, pre internet of course, if you wanted to do something fun, you went to a hockey game or went downtown drinking, or more likely, the first followed by the second. There just weren't many choices. But I think if the team were generating some excitement, we'd start seeing some sellouts again.
 
Re: UVM 2018-19: This is so sad Alex play Esposito

TovarishchLisa said:
The worst bit is casual fans will eat up the .500 record as a Great Sign of Improvement when in reality you can break down the wins like this:

4 cupcakes (UAH/RPI/SHU/Brown, no disrespect to them but they have been dreadful in recent years). Even then, SHU and Brown probably outplayed us.

3 games that Lekkas single-handedly stole with heroic 40+ save performances (@Mich, @Dartmouth, and @CC).

And the 1 oddball: that UConn miracle
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and so does the bootliking media! Ted Ryan story about how they now have win streak and in good shape and the Lekkas Hobey article show this more!! Love Lekkas but they dont give Hobeys to players on dead last teams in the league! Just making up a story that is not legit to make seem like season is going well
Exactly what Schulman wants Sneddon isnt going anywhere and long as he here the program is not!

So jvt this all the posting you will get when it become so clear that the team is bad and will always be bad now because the boss of the athletics too concern about keeping his friend and having their media friends help them keep the team bad! enjoy the empty rinks and nobody caring! that why UNH has no fans they lost them all by being bad you get good people show
Also funny there nothing to write about --- wherer are all those people who were so mad about the negative? How come they are not coming around to prove all us wrong with this fake win streak? Maybe they in denial about the TRUTH
 
Re: UVM 2018-19: This is so sad Alex play Esposito

GreenCat said:
Not sure what is up with college hockey?...Is it dilution with more programs or just hockey east losing its edge?
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UVM Cat in Texas said:
...Maybe it's just that there's more to do today than there was back in the day......But I think if the team were generating some excitement, we'd start seeing some sellouts again.
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The attendance declines extend well beyond hockey and are a big concern in pro sports as well. The new Detroit super-arena just changed the lower bowl seatback colors from red to black so the numbers of empty seats at Red Wings and Pistons games wouldn't be so obvious on TV. And Nick Saban publicly chastised Alabama students for not showing up in what he considered sufficient numbers. As the first quote points out, there are so many more things competing for peoples' time, attention, and $$$ than there were even a few years ago. Biggest but not the only factors include--

--Netflix/Hulu/Roku/streaming services in general
--Social media generally
--Video gaming (including so-called eSports).

Still, there remains something to be said for "Win and They Will Come." Even UMass had crowds of 7K+ at Mullins before the holiday break
 
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Re: UVM 2018-19: This is so sad Alex play Esposito

UVM Cat in Texas said:
Hmmm, I don't think it's the dilution thing or hockey east losing its edge. Maybe it's just that there's more to do today than there was back in the day. When I was at UVM in the mid 80's, pre internet of course, if you wanted to do something fun, you went to a hockey game or went downtown drinking, or more likely, the first followed by the second. There just weren't many choices. But I think if the team were generating some excitement, we'd start seeing some sellouts again.
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I think it's two things primarily: security theater and ticket prices.

With security theater, I can't bring in my purse to the games, which is a mild annoyance as a woman, but becomes even more agitating because I'm also a type 1 diabetic and I have to carry supplies for that everywhere. Only reason I even bother going through this stuff with UVM hockey is because it's in winter and thus I'll have a heavy jacket on which has more pockets. And it's so, so daft. No one is going to attack a college hockey game in Vermont; hell, sporting events are amongst the safest places one can be. Can anyone think of any sort of attack that would justify this kind of policy at a sporting venue? (I have to include venue because while there are two incidents that come to mind, the venue was just the city, so I don't count it).

As for ticket prices, who wants to pay to watch bad hockey when you can stream it in decent quality at home for free or go do something else on the weekend? Maine is probably the only team in HE where there's completely nothing else to do, as even a place like UNH isn't too far from Boston. Although in UNH's defense on their attendance vs Merrimack, I think the students being on winter break was probably a huge factor there as, especially when you combine the decreased attendance that comes with suckitude, the Durham area doesn't have the population to compensate. Burlington isn't devoid of things to do and this season has been the first since I got here that I haven't planned my social life around hockey. (Granted, as far as I know, ticket prices aren't a problem for students, as it seems as though most schools in HE have either heavily discounted or free tickets for students, usually buried in mandatory fees - I know that's at least the case at UVM and UNH - it's moreso a time/availability thing as many students work)
 
Re: UVM 2018-19: This is so sad Alex play Esposito

pokecheckguy2 said:
and so does the bootliking media! Ted Ryan story about how they now have win streak and in good shape and the Lekkas Hobey article show this more!! Love Lekkas but they dont give Hobeys to players on dead last teams in the league! Just making up a story that is not legit to make seem like season is going well
Exactly what Schulman wants Sneddon isnt going anywhere and long as he here the program is not!

So jvt this all the posting you will get when it become so clear that the team is bad and will always be bad now because the boss of the athletics too concern about keeping his friend and having their media friends help them keep the team bad! enjoy the empty rinks and nobody caring! that why UNH has no fans they lost them all by being bad you get good people show
Also funny there nothing to write about --- wherer are all those people who were so mad about the negative? How come they are not coming around to prove all us wrong with this fake win streak? Maybe they in denial about the TRUTH
Click to expand...

I'm gonna go out and say that I like Ted, he's a great guy and a solid writer, but that article was daft. If Zach Aston-Reese couldn't win it in a year where he pretty much ate college hockey for breakfast, how would Lekkas win it on a last-place team?

All-Conference, maybe. All-American, long shot at best. Hobey Baker? Pump the brakes. Especially since goalies never win this dang thing and even if they did I'd probably give it to Daccord at ASU who has them in a tournament spot as an independent at the moment (or Bednard at BG who has been phenomenal for one of this year's surprise packages).

(also, if anyone's wondering why i've been more outspoken lately I am no longer with the Cynic for reasons not related to any of this)
 
Re: UVM 2018-19: This is so sad Alex play Esposito

Also just to show I'm not the queen of poo pooing everything, I have some good news, although it's actually related to the women's team I feel like people should know here - future UVM women's goalie Natalie Ferenc will be representing the US at the upcoming U18 World Championships that start this weekend. She'll be coming in next year.
 
Re: UVM 2018-19: This is so sad Alex play Esposito

Setting aside the team's issues, I think being able to stream the games at home is also a big part of the declining attendance.
 
Cat Fan said:
I think this poster is the only one who is posting so I for one enjoy the information. Please add something to the thread if you think it needs a bump. I happen to like the information this poster shares.
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I like Lisa, so maybe I was a bit harsh, but this blog is so negative. I’m not sure a coaching change is necessarily the solution. They play hard, I think they are well coached despite what others think. The problem is they can’t recruit an elite scorer or two. That changes the whole dynamic, the current first line center is now the second line and it waterfalls down. So why can’t they get these guys? Part of it is the facility. I know for a fact, directly from his father’s mouth, that Johnny Gaudreau, whose family has deep, deep Vermont roots, took one look at the Gut and said “Dad I’m not coming here”. And the other problem is Sneddon has relied too much on his assistants to do the recruiting legwork, and not establishing connections in Quebec, for example, instead going after kids from Western Canada which is not sustainable. So some of the blame is on Sneddon, but like I said, if you get one or two blue chippers, I think there is enough depth in the program to make them a top-15 team. And I do agree about Ted Ryan, his story on Lekkas was a pipe dream.
 
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Re: UVM 2018-19: This is so sad Alex play Esposito

You're telling me that Johnny Gaudreau took one look at the Gut and walked away then committed to play hockey in pre-renovation Matthews Arena?
 
TheRevengeance said:
You're telling me that Johnny Gaudreau took one look at the Gut and walked away then committed to play hockey in pre-renovation Matthews Arena?
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That’s what his father told me. Of course, there may have been other considerations, so may not be totally due to the facilities, but it was a factor.
 
UVM Cat in Texas said:
Right, but he didn't commit to NU after visiting UVM. He visited UVM after de-committing from NU and ultimately decided on BC.
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Oh okay, I get what the guy was saying now. Why would facilities have been an issue at UVM, when the dumpy facilities at NU hadn't deterred him? Got it, little brain mishap there.
 
Re: UVM 2018-19: This is so sad Alex play Esposito

FWIW, I think renovating the Gutt is the way to go with facilities. A new rink really hasn't helped, say, Colgate or RIT, two teams that have somehow had *less* success in their current facilities than before (and I think, like with UVM, their coaches just kinda got stale). Compare that to a slew of teams who either got better or stayed steady state with renovated facilities and good coaching...Cornell, Union, Yale, Harvard, Northeastern, even Bowling Green and Michigan Tech. All of those rinks were built roughly within a decade of the Gutt.
 
Re: UVM 2018-19: This is so sad Alex play Esposito

Also to be *positive* for once in my life, good to see Misley finally get the monkey off his back
 
UVM Cat in Texas said:
Oh okay, I get what the guy was saying now. Why would facilities have been an issue at UVM, when the dumpy facilities at NU hadn't deterred him? Got it, little brain mishap there.
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No, reread his post and he was saying what I originally thought. He said he walked away from UVM and then committed to NU, which was not the case. Anyway, point taken, and I'm gonna stop posting now. :-)
 
Re: UVM 2018-19: This is so sad Alex play Esposito

Right at the end of the warm up Misley bumped the boards by the bench and knocked a couple kid's bricks off the shelf. He is going to have to add that to his pre-game routine now :)

The UVM D had the best seats in the rink to watch the first 2 periods. Nice seeing them be a little more physical in the third period after 2 periods of waving their stick at the puck.
 
Re: UVM 2018-19: This is so sad Alex play Esposito

jfromvt said:
I like Lisa, so maybe I was a bit harsh, but this blog is so negative. I’m not sure a coaching change is necessarily the solution. They play hard, I think they are well coached despite what others think. The problem is they can’t recruit an elite scorer or two. That changes the whole dynamic, the current first line center is now the second line and it waterfalls down. So why can’t they get these guys? Part of it is the facility. I know for a fact, directly from his father’s mouth, that Johnny Gaudreau, whose family has deep, deep Vermont roots, took one look at the Gut and said “Dad I’m not coming here”. And the other problem is Sneddon has relied too much on his assistants to do the recruiting legwork, and not establishing connections in Quebec, for example, instead going after kids from Western Canada which is not sustainable. So some of the blame is on Sneddon, but like I said, if you get one or two blue chippers, I think there is enough depth in the program to make them a top-15 team. And I do agree about Ted Ryan, his story on Lekkas was a pipe dream.
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You must be watchin something else! players might play hard for their own pride but coaching please that has not been good for years and it is bad culture of the progam because it is run by a dictator with do nothing development assistants who can't get the job done on any front! players current and former have no respect for the coaches at all Sneddon has ruined good attitudes around the team and not only do they suck and has to answer fore his bad wins and loss record but he cant even get these guys motivated because they dismiss him in his fits of rage
I would love to have had Johnny Hockey and Guy was a good player and just like would have loved to have Martys kid as well but using the Gutt as excuse is bunk and you know it - some kids might not like it fine but more college rinks look like that than they do Aggainis! and know what we know a bout Sneddon track record with talent Johnny would be in ECHL after he was done with him and not a NHL all star THAT sir more of reason why those kids do not come - they take kids who they wont develop or have no potential and should be bottom 6 but on top 6 here - that Sneddon no showing elite new england recruit events when Jerry York show and making Wallyworld and Patrick go find guys with a revolving door to cut the ones they dont think met the standard!!
Fact are facts Sneddon has lowest win percent of all hockey east coaches who been on job more 3 years he cant recruit he cant develop he cant get respect from players or of elite recruit because all those things the GUTT has nothin to do with that
It is time for a real coach and for hockey to be back on top over basketball - love basketball success but UVM is a HOCKEY school and they should start acting like it step one FIRE SNEDDON
 
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