On Tue, 11 Jan 2000, Jeff Kennedy wrote:
 
> Albany/Buffalo/Syracuse/New York(?) competing with B/W/P would be a joke.
> Those buildings would be empty without the local team for the last day.
 
What?  Albany has probably been the best venue attendwise for the
Regionals of any site.  RPI hasn't been to a Knick/Pepsi Regionals since
1994.  Union never will (flame on, just a joke).  The two teams that
probably brought in the most fans were Clarkson and UVM.  UNH brought in a
pretty good contingent, BU so so, BC very few.  Albany gets a lot of
genuine college hockey fans from the Capital District and New England, as
well as Maryland (right Jim) and even Florida.
 
It's actually refreshing to hear people bitching and moaning about how
tough a ticket to the 2001 Frozen Four will be.  In fact it will be the
first sell-out for hockey (except maybe the River Rats and the former Red
Wings) in Knickerbocker/Pepsi history.
 
Also, I would bet that the NC$$ might be a little more cautious about
flipping seeds out of their regions with a four regional format.  If the
NC$$ is really serious about expanding the tournament to 16 teams it will
have to be even more cognizant about the participants at each site and
their ability to attract enough attendance to keep the event respectible.
Please don't respond with the purist retort that each venue's cast of
characters should be chosen strictly by seedings.   For the West
it would be a virtual death sentence attendance wise if the host team at
the campus site wasn't allowed to participate and was instead shipped out.
And Eastern teams have little if any following out West--witness the empty
house at Dane Coliseum back a few years ago when RPI played Minnesota in
the first round.
 
Nevertheless the thought of a 16 team tournament is very appealing.  I'm
not that sure it will actually happen.
*******************************************************************************
Brian Morris                       RPI Engineers--A February to Remember?
[log in to unmask]
 
HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey;  send information to
[log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.