At 10:11 PM +0100 4/6/99, Karen/Greg Ambrose wrote:
> My thought on Anaheim were formulated before I even left for the trip.
That's too bad. If you'd gone into it with an open mind maybe you
wouldn't have simply reaffirmed what you wanted to believe.
> The
> vast majority of college hockey fans do not live within 1,000 miles of the
> Pond. Why they are subjected to travelling across the country to see their
> sport is unfathomable.
Here's a big reason -- if you don't INVEST in growing the sport, the
sport won't grow. You don't turn potential fans into fans by having
them travel, because they won't. You bring the game to them and
convince them to want more.
There's another aspect to this. Alums. Not all fans of the sport are
still living NEAR the college. It's a very narrow view to think that
the only ones that matter are the ones that are still at school or
within shouting distance of the school.
> What percentage of the crowd for each game was local? Was it 5%, 10%? If
> the newspaper coverage of the tournament is indicative of local fan
> interest, the games made little impact in LA. In the Friday edition of the
> LA Times, there was no article at all.
There was good coverage in both papers, since we stole my families
papers while staying there. There was also good coverage in the
various TV news broadcasts I saw.
From what I saw, and who I talked to, a huge majority of the people
in the arena were from out of town. LOTS of those people were
west-coast based Alums who don't have time/money to go EAST for the
games, and finally had a chance to go to this tourney. Lots of
silicon valley emigres were there, and I talked to some folks from
Phoenix, as well as various other places like Seattle.
> In the Saturday edition of the
> Orange County Register, the big article was on face masks in college
> hockey. Face masks have been part of college hockey for 20 years!
yes, and the article you mention (but don't describe) was about the
continuing controversy over them, in that the coaches want to change
the rule to allow half-shields, while the NCAA refuses to. The doctor
the NCAA is listening to sounds like a real dweeb. His response to
all of the coaches and player's comments was "they're stupid, they
don't know what they're talking about'. Gee, what great advice the
NCAA must be getting.
I thought the article was nicely relevant to the tourney and
situation, and it was a nice change from what could have happened
down there, which were nothing but puff pieces on how Paul's brother
is so great. The local media actually looked beyond the trivial hook
and talked about the tourney in some detail. Gee, how terrible.
> That's fine and dandy. But what about the fans of the four teams involved
> who could not afford to pony up the bucks to spend four days in Orange
> County.
It all evens out. What about the fans who aren't local enough to
their old teams so they can't see the regular season OR any of the
playoffs? Greg, your view of this is very narrow, IMHO. The crowd in
Anaheim was very into the series, very much attached to the various
teams, and very into it. And many of them, from the samples of folks
I talked to, were people who normally don't GET to these games
because they're in the same sitaution you're in this year, only for
once they got the chance to go. And they took it.
but I guess once you move away from New Hampshire, you stop counting?
that seems to be what you're implying.
--
Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? <http://www.plaidworks.com/hockey/>)
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