Re: Wisconsin Hockey XXIX: Yes, this is the Rumpel Rink!
I got a mass email from the athletic department announcing when men's hockey student season tickets go on sale. (I got the football one about a week ago.) This summer, hockey tickets will go on sale a couple weeks
after football tickets, when they used to be on the same day. Back in the fall, I was told by a guy in the athletic department that they wanted hockey tickets sold on the same day as football tickets to capitalize on the massive traffic to the website. Personally, I don't think that having the two sold on the same day helps, and I'm glad to see that they're splitting them up this year.
First, I'm assuming football tickets will be sold out no matter what, so maximizing hockey ticket sales will maximize sales between the two. When they were sold on the same day, hockey tickets were a footnote to football tickets. Literally. In the emails, you'd see the UW Athletics letterhead, the top portion of the football information, and a picture of Montee Ball. If you wanted to see anything related to hockey, you'd have to scroll down, and people don't like to do that with mass marketing emails in WiscMail. Also, everyone makes a big deal about "the day football tickets go on sale." I don't think that really benefits hockey ticket sales. If someone wasn't sure about buying hockey tickets, I don't think the fact that they're on the website that day woudl help. If that someone already spent close to a couple hundred bucks on football tickets, they might not be in the mood to spend even more money on hockey tickets.
Here's a portion of the email -
http://i.imgur.com/dQUd1tI.png
This was after the on-sale date details, but I found it kind of funny. I wish they found a way to indicate that North Dakota is a long-time rival, but they had to come up with a nice, short sentence that could also hype up Ferris State. Maybe later in the summer or early in the fall we'll get something about how they're opening the home schedule by renewing their old rivalry with UND in a rematch of the NCAA tournament game.
And of course, the real reason I took that screenshot - "...as well as long-time rivals Michigan and Ohio State." The portion of the student population that they're targeting might not understand why that's amusing.

Michigan and Wisconsin did play in hockey way back in the day, and they sure looked like rivals when they played in Madison. Ohio State? Well, those are magic words to the fair-weathered UW student fan, and it would be silly not to use them.