Lewiston Sun Journal's staff writer Justin Pelletier discusses the
   possible expansion of NCAA Men's Ice Hockey Tournament from 12 to 16
   teams. This response to the Maine Hockey List quotes only a few pointsŁ

>When the powers-that-be in college hockey convene next week after the Frozen
>Four is over and I am on my way back home from St. Paul, they have an
>opportunity to do something that will benefit the sport. ...

I think college hockey is done with this, except perhaps on how it's
presented to the NCAA committees that must signoff on the proposal, and
on how the 16-team tournament would be structured.  The former work is
mostly done, from what I've heard, but the latter has any number of
people carrying the banner of differing proposals.  Four regionals (2
east, 2 west) with the winner of each regional advancing to the Frozen
Four has the best chance, perhaps, but even then there are questions and
problems ...

>One of the primary issues facing the committee is justifying expanding the
>men's hockey tournament in the face of stagnating budgets. But even the NCAA
>director of championships, Tom Jacobs, admitted in an interview earlier this
>season that "hockey is one of the few sports that generates net profit." He
>went on to say that the sport would be over $1 million in the black.
>Conservative committee estimates showed that adding two more regional sites
>under an expansion plan could add a quarter of a million more dollars to
>that.

I think the $1M is the estimate for this year's profit and it's the 1st
time over $1M.  That's a far cry from a dozen years ago when the
participating schools divided up the tournament profit pie of a couple
of hundred thousand or so.

I've heard estimates of an increased profit of $200,000, but $50,000
more is hardly worth mentioning ...  especially since I don't understand
from where the increased profits will come!  The NCAA Ice Hockey
Committee report on how they will pull more fans to the regionals should
be interesting (magic!).

Indeed, I think a potential problem with 4 more teams getting invited is
an increased chance of more teams with negligible traveling fan base.

>Looking at the sites available to the East Regional, Worcester, Albany,
>Hartford, Providence and even Lowell jump to mind. ...

I would replace Hartford with Lake Placid and add the Fleetcenter.  But
the East has little problem wrt hosting a pair of regionals.  Eastern fans
have shown they will travel within New England and even New York in
great numbers.  But I think many of these people now plan well in
advance to go to THE regional, while then there will be a choice of 2.
Presale will go down, if anything, IMHO.

>The biggest difficulty in the two-regional site plan would be the location
>of the Western tournaments. Michigan always puts on a good showing when it
>hosts the regional in Ann Arbor, but aside from that there are some tough
>choices to be made. Unless its teams are good, Minnesota and Denver fans
>would be less likely to show up for a regional not involving their local
>teams.

Exactly!  In the west, college hockey seems to only be a good draw on
campus sites ...  and only when the host school is involved.  Some sites
have 18K capacity (probably more than needed, but some such as
Michigan's Yost Ice Arena hold less than 6200.  How will the Committee
structure the west?  How will they award bids?  How will they ensure
they GET a bid?!

Jack McDonald and the rest of college hockey deserve great praise for
getting the NCAA to bend their own rules in order to get college hockey
to 16 teams, but they have plenty of good work ahead!

Actually, I see a couple of other ways that profits might be increased.

From my calculations, about 6,000 of the 18,000 Frozen Four ticket
packages are given away to corporate sponsors and NCAA "people".  My
ideas?  (1) increase the 6,000 giveaways to include new sponsors (yuk!),
or (2) decrease the giveaways and allow more paying fans to attend.
This year, there were about 10,000 paying fans (over 6,000 recurring
attendees and about 3,000 new attendees) (sold out long ago) along
with the 2000 fans that the participating universities purchased (500
per school) for their own use.  Increase the price of these 12,000
tickets from about $41 to $50 and you have a cool $100K new profit.

Of course, if the NCAA wanted to see real money, they would fly NCAA
staff around the country in coach instead of first class.  ;-)

cheers, wayne

Wayne T. Smith
[log in to unmask]                          Old Town Landing
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