Karen/Greg Ambrose wrote:
>
Gerg, er, Greg Ambrose writes:
> Personally I am opposed to campus sites for any round of the NCAA's. It
> gives incredibly unfair advantage to the home team in what is supposed to
> be a national tournament conducted to show who is truly the champion. By
> giving (at least this year) Michigan a leg up, I will be shocked if they
> don't make it to Boston. BTW, what does this say about fan interest in
> Western Hockey? The fact that the NCAA has to resort to a smallish campus
> site because of attendance questions does not speak well for the general
> love of the sport out there. I do recall both the 1979 and 1985 NCAA's in
> Detroit when neither Michigan or MSU was involved and the Olympia and the
> Joe respectively were empty. Perhaps one of,youm CCHA ar WCHA gurus can
> shed some light on this for us.
>
> Gerg Ambrose
Though I am not a guru, nor have I played one on TV, I'll take a stab at
this one.
One word: geography. Look at a map. Detroit, East Lansing, Ann Arbor,
and Grand Rapids are a long drive from the Twin Cities, for example. It
hasn't been easy for Western fans who don't live in Michigan to attend a
Regional on short notice. Eastern fans, unless I'm mistaken, generally
regard a road trip of over 250 miles to be really long.
Only one West Regional has been located outside of Michigan -- Madison,
in 1995. Both sessions were sold out. Next year's will be in Madison,
and the University of Minnesota is bidding to host the 2000 West
Regional in Mariucci Arena.
Regarding Phinal Phour attendance, note that the 1989 St. Paul Phinal
Phour was the first to have really large attendance. Previous Phinal
Phours had much smaller attendance regardless of location.
Also note that the WCHA once again led the nation in attendance in
1997/98, with an average of over 6,000 per game. There is no lack of
support for college hockey in the West.
-- Erik
HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to
[log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.
|
