I wanted to add my two cents re: the hockey vs. Basketball issue.  I thought
the column from the Ann Arbor News (submitted by Roger Spurgeon) and Roger's
comments, plus the comments from Diane Hatfield, were right on the money.
College hockey needs to find a way to not bury its own championship beneath
the more lucrative and press-generating basketball Final Four.  Scheduling
the LSSU-Wisc game directly against the second game of the basketball
doubleheader seems stupid, if not suicidal, to me.  People (like me) who
wanted to watch both were forced to choose and I don't think that's right.
I don't know, maybe the hockey game should be played the Sunday (in between
the semis and championship of basketball).  It seems like the NC$$ should
do everything it can to promote the hockey championship...
 
I grew up in Syracuse, NY, home of the Carrier Dome and 33,000 fans at a
basketball game.  Syracuse, as many of you probably know, also hosts an
annual hockey tourney, the Syracuse Invitational Tournament, or SIT.  This
year's SIT (if memory serves me) had Clarkson, Colgate, Ohio State and Army.
The SIT has been a great tourney for years -- I probably went to about a
dozen when I was growing up -- but attendance is down and press coverage
is way down.  If the basketball team happens to beat Southwest Podunk
State by 50, or if a basketball player announces that he has learned to
tie his shoes, the local papers will splash that all over the place, and
you have to dig to find coverage of a great hockey tournament.  (Obviously
I am being slightly facetious, but you get my point).  I just think that
people in Syracuse don't realize that they have an opportunity to see
excellent hockey action.
 
We have it pretty good here at Bowdoin: hockey is by far the most popular
sport on campus and in town, and we receive superb support from the fans
and the local media.  But we are a rarity.  I don't know if there is a
solution -- I don't think anyone for a second imagines that hockey will
somehow be magically turned into a more popular sport than basketball.
But what happened to the Michigan hockey team in particular (being almost
totally ignored) and the college hockey world in general last weekend was
a travesty.  Something should be done.
 
- Mike Townsend
Sports Information Director, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine
[log in to unmask] (I have my own e-mail address at last)
Support small college hockey!