I am in agreement with many of the other posters with regards to this
years frozen four!

Whether the NCAA believes it or not we are a very small, loyal
community of fans.  When they mentioned the possibility of changing the
way the priority system currently works, I sensed they were out of
touch.

The Frozen four has become more of an event and as a college hockey fan
I am grateful for that!  However, over the course of the last 10 years
there have only been three championships that you could not get tickets
to outside the arena at face value.

Cornell talks about if they were there the tickets would be gone, yet I
remember seeing hundreds of empty seats in Buffalo when the played the
first semi-final game vs. UNH.  The regionals in their current format
have struggled to fill buildings, I was shocked at all the empty seats
in Worcester this year when you had BU and BC at the same regional
site!  Again the core group of fans willing to shell out $35 per ticket
is very small!

The Frozen Four's present format is very good, and count me as someone
who is very happy it has a weekend of it's own, without the hoop hype!
But it will never be  on equal footing with hoops or football, as only
those of us who care about our team, and then the sport itself are apt
to travel regardless of the location to see four teams we don't have
ties too play!

It is unfortunate that this group of four is not drawing the interest
of the average fan and without a Michigan or Wisconsin with their rabid
fan base and close proximity you have an abundance of tickets.  But I
hope the NCAA is learning a lesson on this, any thoughts of scrapping a
system that rewards loyal fans should be reevaluated.  When the system
was employed it was done so for without our knowledge, if you had
purchased for the last 5 years you were number 1 in line to get future
tickets and so on!

However, what many of us have known for years is we go for great
college hockey!  Why else would we be heading to luxury destinations in
April, like Buffalo, Albany, Cincinatti and St. Paul.  I can think of
other places I'd rather go, but no other event that I'd rather see!

Here's to a great tournament, good ice and a close national
championship game with drama!

Bob Fitta
Maine '83
On Apr 2, 2005, at 11:55 AM, Clay Satow wrote:

> A set of tickets just went on eBay for $77.
>
> An eBay search on “Frozen Four” got 320 hits.  I’m guessing that’s 500
> –700 tickets.  On USCHO,
> tickets are being offered at a discount.  More tickets than usual seem
> to be available on
> Hockey-L, but I have no hard stats to show that.
>
> I’m wondering what this means for future Frozen Fours.  What will
> happen next year if Wisconsin
> isn’t there?  What will happen in St. Louis, with no prominent schools
> relatively close?  What
> will happen in Denver, if neither of the local teams makes the Frozen
> Four?  Are the people who
> are trying to get a Frozen Four in Tampa crazy or visionary?
>
> First of all, it doesn’t bother me a bit if the speculators get
> hammered.  I’m happy that people
> who genuinely can’t afford to go unless their team make it, or who
> can’t afford to give the NCAA a
> one year zero interest loan, will be able to afford tickets (in fact
> I’m a bit envious of the
> bargain they’re getting).
>
> If Columbus is a flop in terms of no-shows, I wonder if there will
> continue to be sellouts.  I’m
> guessing that there are three broad groups who enter the lottery.
> There are die hards, like a lot
> of folks on this list who will go wherever the tournament is, or
> whoever is in it.  There are
> rabid fans of specific teams who want to make sure that they have
> tickets in the event that their
> team makes it.  And there are speculators.
>
> If the speculators lose big, and drop out, and if the rabid fans of
> specific teams decide that
> there’s a greater risk in investing in tickets than in trying to buy
> after the field is set, that
> leaves only the die hard college hockey fans.
>
> There is an interesting demographic this year.  Two participants
> relatively far away, with loyal,
> but small fan bases.  One team with a loyal, reasonably sized, willing
> to travel fan base, about
> 1000 miles from Columbus.  And probably the largest, most loyal fan
> base of any college hockey
> team.
>
> I’ve rambled a bit, but I’m interested in what other folks think.
>
>
>
>
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Bob Fitta
Director of Advertising
Harvard Magazine
617-496-6631