I see a lot of difficulties here that is seems to me need to be thought through.  How do you
apportion seats?  I’ve been to several eastern regionals under the current structure, and for the
most part the crowds were bigger than any on-campus rink.

That means the NCAA would have to do something kinda stupid – turning away people who want to
attend the regionals.  That would seem to me to be harmful to the sport.  Who are you going to
turn away?  Fans of the lower seeded teams?  Season ticket holders of the host team?  This will
be, for some loyal fans, the worst of all worlds – can’t attend the regionals because the venue’s
too small and tickets have to be rationed, and can’t attend the Frozen Four, because of bad luck
in the lottery.

We’ve been through these discussions about siting regionals before.  One conclusion I’ve come to
is that issues around the regionals are different in the east and the west, and I don’t’ think you
necessarily need to, or should, use the same system at both.  If there is going to be less
emphasis on "cross-overs" that to me is even more reason to use different systems in the east and
west.

My opinion is that for the east, to have a combined regional at a neutral site, with one “region”
playing Thursday/Saturday and the other playing Friday/Sunday would work best.

For the west, maybe on-campus works.  One thing I do like about the proposal is that if a regional
IS on-campus, I think it should be on the campus of the higher seeded team.

Clay


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