Mark McCullen responded to the questions about Piotrowski and why play
at Joe Louis Arena, but I would add a couple of things.  On the second
question first, Mark's description of the size arenas and the presence
of many fans from both schools in Detroit was accurate.  Of course, the
real answer is MONEY.  I don't know what JLA's cut was, but they sold
twice as many tickets as they could have sold at Munn and Yost in the
standard home and home format, and the price of the tickets was double
what MSU charges and 3 times what UM -- in these sticks UM means
University of Michigan -- charges.  Hockey tickets are the only item in
the entire operation of the two universities where UM charges less than
MSU.  But the only time Yost sells out is when they play MSU, and until
this year MSU Spartan fans bought more of the Yost tickets than the UM fans.
This year it was about even.  Back to the issue, MONEY, even with a fairly
stiff rental fee, the U's probably cleared $25K each over what they cleared
with their November series.  I have the feeling it would be hard to get the
athletic department to tell the exact figures.  Even though these are
publicly assisted universities, the athletic departments seem to get away
without answering some of these questions.
 
Piotrowski probably is the best ref in the CCHA.  He ran an excellent game
Friday night except for the blunder on the penalty at the end of the third
period.
 
     The delayed penalty was to start at 18:02, and at 19:00 the guy --
     number 5 Ward, I think -- is out of the box and UM is full strength.  I
     haven't found anyone here who heard what the announcers said about that
     delay.  Did they know what was happening?  I would like to have someone
     tell us about it who watched the PASS feed.
 
MSU's problem with Piotrowski is he has done too many of the MSU games this
year.  I estimate he has done over half, and the league must have at least 5
officiating teams.  It's not just geographic, because he had the games at
Sault Saint Marie one week and at Miami of Ohio the next. That's the
greatest traveling extent in the league.  With the same official showing up
every week, the fans don't get a chance to forget what they don't like about
the guy, and they don't get enough of a chance to see how much worse it
could be with some others.   I suspect that an official that sees the same
team in the same building a lot must have to work to keep sharp.  It
probably is good to give the official a chance to forget what that team was
up to last week, just like the fans need to forget.  Even with Piotrowski's
familiarity breeding contempt, I think he has delivered a lot of good games
for MSU this year.  Unfortunately, MSU didn't win enough of them.  You might
argue that if the MSU players had done as consistently well at their game as
Piotrowski did at his, MSU wouldn't be worried about whether they will have
home ice for the first round of the league championships.