Re: WISCONSIN Hockey Vol. XXIV - Craziest Season Of All Time
Completely bush-league that a conference home series isn't even on tape delay. Cost-cutting or apathy from the athletic department?
Years ago, when I was watching UW hockey on a 13" black and white tv in my bedroom, PBS seemed to show almost every home series on tape delay, but over the years they have cut back, which is a bummer, but it's not a recent development. I do think somehow the AD needs to work with broadcasters to help line up funding to get more UW hockey games on tv. I wonder how much it costs PBS to produce a game on tv? I would have pd the 10 bucks and watched online this weekend, then cancelled like Chuck suggested, but I did hook up with Gurt and I'm taking #2 son to the game tonight (thanks Gurt). Plus these days you can listen on the web, follow the blog, follow on USCHO, follow via game tracker, or pay and watch online, so there's lots of ways to follow the game. Years ago in the black and white tv days, I had to hope the Milwaukee Journal had a box score.
I used to think UW attendance going down was mostly due to economics. I thought fan's loyaly to UW hockey would keep attendance up, kinda like the loyalty of Packer fans, but there is clearly more to this looking at how bad attendance is, last night was 8907. I myself decided not to attend any games because of the scoring/winning issues and I'm as rabid a UW hockey fan as there is, but I did only when I got ahold of 2 discounted tickets. The big question is would a coaching change invigorate the fans and make them come back? Sauer was a legend himself, and he was replaced with a legend in Eaves. How do you one-up a legendary guy like Eaves with a name that will suck the fans back into the KC? It just can't be a name, the guy has to be able to coach and recruit too. Maybe just the change itself would draw them back. The concern is once someone allocates that time slot in their lives to something else, it's hard to get them to ditch that new interest and switch back. Solovsfett and I know this first hand in being Indycar fans. Back in the mid 90's they were huge, then they had all sorts on internal political problems that fractured the series, and now that they are back to being a decently run organization, 90% of the lost fans didn't come back. I fear this same consequence for UW hockey. I guess by me typing this it means I'm ready to move on. It's been fun Mike, well, kinda.
Thanks again Gurt, the discounted tickets fit the budget. I am looking forward to the game tonight, I can't get enough of the intro in person. My son and I will do our best to create energy in the KC. Hopefully we won't offend Gurt's longtime neighbors, if they show up. Or maybe they'll thun we're too quiet! Not likely, but I hope so.
Let's go RED!
