Tony writes:
 
>I have to say that I agree with Ralph -- although I am biased by the fact
>that I live in Boston.  Hockey Fest was before I started watching college
>hockey, but the idea of combining the HE and ECAC playoffs into on huge
>hockey orgy sounds incredible to me.
 
From the point of view of the ECAC, Hockeyfest was an unmitigated disaster.
The attendance for the ECAC's games, in comparison to Hockey East's, was
pitiful.  It didn't help that in the three years that Hockeyfest was held
(1990-1992, with an abbreviated ECAC-only Hockeyfest in 1990, since various
measles outbreaks kept the Hockey East teams out of the Gah-den), the ECAC
Phinal Phour teams were all from New York, except for Harvard in 1991.
They all brought their own (large) contingents of fans, but there was vir-
tually no local interest in the games.  And why would there be, when the
Hockey East playoffs featured three more-or-less local teams plus Maine?
 
I think after the 1992 playoffs, the ECAC tried to get the Gah-den for
its own exclusive use for future playoffs (thus ending Hockeyfest), and
the Gah-den officials just laughed at them... which is part of the reason
why the ECACs are now at Lake Placid.  Well, it is more or less centrally
located for ECAC teams...
 
>                                      If the ECAC plaoffs are going to
>continue to be held in Lake Placid, they should at least improve the
>broadcast quality.  Empire's coverage is terrible compared to NESN's.
 
Agreed.
--
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Bill Fenwick                        |  Send your HOCKEY-L poll responses to:
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LET'S GO RED!!                                                  DJF  5/27/94
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