Time for me to stick my neck into this NY area college hockey topic.
Very thorough and interesting history lesson by Kurt, as usual. I'm not sure
how much I would "directly" connect the point-shaving scandels to the falloff
of college sports interest, but at least somebody FINALLY pointed out the utter
lack of interest in college sports in NYC and LI. Not that people in NYC/LI
are not interested at all in college sports, but they don't usually have
favorite teams, and it isn't very rabid. Sure the Bowl Games and NCAA
Tournament are watched, but there are no schools to support, and I'm not sure
anyone would support them if there were.
I live in Pennsylvania now, and high school football, especially, is huge. On
Long Island, people could care less. St. John's games are not very well
attended, especially when you consider the Knicks.
The point of ice time is perhaps the most important. I can personally vouch
for the fact that street hockey is HUGE on LI. This is one of my personal pet
peeves, as a matter of fact, when certain NY media people downplay hockey and
when people put down the support of the Islanders. Growing up, all we did was
play street hockey. We weren't big basketball people, though we played it
some. We played a lot of street football. Baseball is difficult because you
need a lot of people to make it good. It was mostly hockey, and our block
would play against a lot of other blocks. Everyone played street hockey.
(This is the early-mid 80's by the way).
Furthermore, I realize most people outside of NY never heard of DEK hockey, but
it is probably the most popular participation sport on Long Island, probably
next to softball, though I would dispute that amongst teenagers. DEK hockey is
like street hockey, but played on a "rink" of hard rubber with holes, like a
welcome mat. IT's got boards, the whole bit. Leagues are hugely popular.
It's like a religion. Similar to ice hockey rinks, the DEK's are always full.
The difference is, there are many more DEK's. As a matter of fact, there was
only one ice rink with a 20-mile radius of me growing up. There are now a few
more. Trust me from playing DEK hockey, the people who played were darn good.
There is no doubt in my mind, that if the opportunity were there, there would
be a lot of ice hockey players produced from NYC/LI. The Ferraro's (whose
father owns the most popular "DEK" on LI) were taken to Philly every weekend to
play.
I am also certain this situation exists in many places today. I just wrote an
article for the paper I write for in Suburban Philly. Rinks are spreading, but
not fast enough to keep up with demand --- I'm not even getting into the
expense issue. We loved hockey in my neighborhood, but NO ONE played organized
ice hockey, except very few. I was taking a walk today and I estimate that I
saw 15 people with hockey sticks, or playing roller hockey, TWO small kids with
baseball bats, and about FIVE people playing hoops. The expense issue comes
into play in terms of high school because no schools have their own rinks in
this area. And, the state governing bodies often don't sanction the sport, for
various reasons.
So my point is two-fold --- One, people in NYC/LI are extremely interested in
playing hockey, and watching pro hockey. And the lack of interest at Princeton
and Yale, and the probable lack of interest there would be if St. John's
played, or anyone else, has nothing to do with lack of interest in hockey as a
sport. But, nonetheless, there would indeed probably be little interest in St.
John's hockey.
And lastly, let's stop using Princeton having low attendance at their playoff
game as an example. That's a bad example. BC drew 700 fans for their playoff
game, Vermont doesn't sell out their playoff games when they sell out every
other game. Brown drew very poorly for the playoffs.
And very, very lastly, Mike Jackman was on the money when he spoke of a reason
why Princeton doesn't draw great - because alums get the tickets and don't use
them. That is probably an EQUAL problem to the general collegiate sports
apathy in the area.
Adam W.
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