Re: Wisconsin Hockey 2018-2019: We can have a witty thread title when we start winnin
I think I'm saddest about the effect it has had on the student section. Hockey is a generational sport that needs upper classes training younger classes about those traditions. I am afraid that when the WCHA-trained older students left the building with disinterest in the new B1G, we lost a couple years of that training and long-standing Badger Hockey student pride that will take decades to rebuild. A real shame...
This is WAY off. I was a student for the end of UW's time in the men's WCHA and the beginning of the Big Ten. (I also kept going to the student section after graduating
) The older students left the building because they left school. They didn't suddenly become disinterested because Bemidji State wasn't coming to town 2 out of every 3 years anymore.
When the Big Ten conference started, I WAS one of those "WCHA-trained older students." I can assure you that nobody was leaving because of the conference switch. The issues with student interest stem from the near-zero promotion the school gave the program for years, which is terrible when you're talking about a sport/league (college hockey specifically) that is virtually unknown to the majority of your incoming students,
including hockey fans.
The student fans who cared enough to actually miss (to a large enough degree to be disgusted) the most recent "old" WCHA were also the fans who cared enough that they were buying student tickets every year they were on campus.
If you were a freshman in 2009-10, even if you weren't a hardcore hockey fan, you were aware it was a big deal. Your brother 2 years younger? You didn't get that impression at all, even if you have a friend who fell in love with college hockey more than any other spectator sport. (Yes, I'm thinking of specific people when I say that, but I found it to be consistent among everyone I spoke to while on campus.) You knew it was kinda big to some people, but you had a different impression. It's not like football, where you get tickets even if you don't care at all, because you're afraid you'll miss out. After all, UW shoves it down your throat from the second you turn in your application.
That's the difference. You had to really actively seek out college hockey to get into it. It's about not enough freshmen replacing the seniors. Attendance was going down in 2011, and those people were upperclassmen just a couple years later, not the same upperclassmen from before. That was already happening, and I have yet to find or hear about any real people who were still students when they lost interest in college hockey due to being a WCHA loyalist.
I said it in my last comment and I'll say it again: If enough people (we're talking huge numbers) were angry enough about realignment that they gave up interest in college hockey, then that would mean there were WAY more diehard UW hockey fans then there actually are.
Those students in the second and third decks weren't the same ones you're thinking of. They were there because they liked hockey, they liked UW hockey, and UW hockey is a great time.
In 2013-14, it felt like UW Athletics tried to keep it a secret how good that team was poised to be. It was insane. No hype on the main UW social media accounts, nothing beyond the usual below-the-fold "oh and hockey tickets are also on sale" thing.
Sure, they had a couple stinkers early on, but they ended up being good. Really good. The Big Ten schedule was backloaded, so you had a good team playing Michigan (tons of students came, even in the heart of winter break!!!), Ohio State, and Michigan State.
And what happened. Well, student ticket sales before the season were bad. They were bad the year before, and they kept being bad for the reasons I explained above. But once all that stuff in the previous paragraph got going, interest went up. UW recognized this and made single game student tickets available (for like 10 or 12 bucks) in the upper deck corner, and those got used in a heartbeat. Regular student tickets were getting sold for 20-30 bucks (or more for that magical Friday vs Minnesota). The starting point was really low, because the fans who weren't there early on were NOT these mythical college hockey fans who were still students but left the building because they missed the old league.
The fans who weren't there early never had an entry point in the first place.
And then the next fall, knowing the team would be crappy, UW refused to take advantage of the opportunity to say "remember how good they were last year? Oooh an old rival in North Dakota is coming to town!" Then the window of opportunity to easily get new fans on board closed because the team was terrible.
Edit: I want to be extra clear that I'm specifically talking about the student body and the student section, and how things changed as the classes that saw the 2010 run went away. I know there were cranky people around town who didn't appreciate how Michigan and Wisconsin looked like old fierce rivals despite having never played each other (with any of their current players at the time).
