In response to our admininstrator's "state-of-the-digest" report and a few
other recent postings, I want to offer a few things:
 
There's been a lot of posts recent regarding the lack of coverage in local
medium.   Mike Machnik wrote yesterday about hoow the Boston media won't
cover College Hockey as much as we'd like because, in essence, they feel
the public isn't interested.  I told Mike that I thought that it wasn't
that the public didn't want it, it was that the public didn't know about
it.  Sort of a Catch-22, if you will - the public won't complain about
lack of exposure if they don't know about it, but yet if they don't
complain the media thinks they're not interested.  A couple of personal
stories might illustrate this point.
 
Three childhood friends of mine who I don't get to see that oftern anymore
were in the area the night of a UMass-Lowell vs. BU game in the middle of
the season.  They're huge sports fans, but didn't know anything about
college hockey except to hear me ramble on about it.  I convinced them to
join me at the game.  Well, they had a blast - they couldn't believe the
game they saw!  I hadn't spoken to them for a few weeks but I was at a bar
in Boston before the Hockey East tournament Championship game and  I ran
into them.  I asked them what they were doing here and they told me that I
had turned them into College Hockey fans and they were here for the game!!
 Our seats weren't near each other but after the game we met for a beer
and they couldn't stop talking about it!!!
 
Yesterday at work I was talking to a friend of mine who also is quite a
sports fan.  I was babbling on about College Hockey and told him about the
NC$$ Championship game was Sat. night on ESPN.  He was surprised that the
NC$$ would put that game on the same time as BBALL.  He said first that
the marketing of the sport could be alot better since if he, as the
average sports fan, didn't know this.  He said now that he did he would
definitely watch parts of it, but wasn't going to miss BBall.  He said
that if the game was on a different time and that it was advertised
properly he felt that lots of people who were not hard-core college hockey
fans, but sports fans in general, would watch.  [And of course, as we all
know, once you've seen a couple of games, you're hooked!]
 
I've said it before, but we need to, as a group, soend the waning moments
of this season, this summer and the future trying to push this baby!!  If
I've converted 5 people and everyone else does too, and so on and so
on.... (like the old Prell commercial), maybe at least someday we won't be
in the Chicago Trib under "Ice Skating"!!
 
   - Steve
 
 
 
**************************************************************************
Steve Weisfeldt                                   Go Chiefs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
University of Lowell (now UMASS-Lowell)  1986, 1988
[log in to unmask]                          Roloson for Hobey!!!!!!
**************************************************************************