Regarding the poor attendance at the WJC, consider these factors:
 
 
o Many of the fans that would attend are the same that would attend the
college games. The families have been going, but a major factor in college
hockey attendance -- the students -- are out of town on break.
 
o College hockey in Massachusetts/New England, while popular, still lags
FAR behind football and basketball, both in full swing right now. Last
year, with the championships in Providence, the Boston papers (75 minutes
from Providence) gave scattered coverage to the tournament, no more than
half a page leading up to the tournament, and one page the days of the
tournament. This with both Maine and BU in the final four. When BU won the
championship, they received little more than a page of coverage. Meanwhile,
every day (including the day after BU's victory), the basketball tournament
received 2-3 times as much coverage, and only UMass was competing.
Meanwhile, I remember reading daily 2-page spreads in Minneapolis two years
ago.
 
o The tournament's publicity program stank. Big time.
 
o Could the WJC committee picked a worse week for the tournament, smack dab
in between Christmas and New Year's? Most people are visiting families,
taking vacations, and/or doing other holiday-related activities. This means
people spending a lot of time and money, and even the die-hard hockey fans
can't always make the games.
 
o Boston sports fans are, for the most part, fickle. While I think most
Hockey-L folks would attend every game they could, I think many Boston fans
could care less about seeing Russia play Switzerland.
 
o Other sports competition: again with the timing of the competition, the
WJC gets to compete with College Bowl games, NFL playoffs, and college
basketball tournaments, in addition to regular-season professional
basketball and hockey. With people rushing around this time of year,
whether shopping, visiting, or partying, most would prefer to sit on the
Lazy Boy and watch sports (including the WJC) on the TV. Perhaps ESPN and
ESPN2 should have blacked out Massachusetts...
 
o While hockey is a major sport in New England, it's far from being the
biggest sport for spectators. The majority of "hockey fans" in the Boston
area could give a hoot about Major Junior hockey leagues. High school
hockey is big, but not nearly as big as football or basketball. If hockey
were as popular spectator-wise in New England as it is participant-wise,
all the college teams would draw much higher crowds than usual. In town,
only BU regularly draws capacity crowds. Do any of the fans spill over to
watch Harvard, Northeastern, or BC hockey? Conte Forum is beautiful, but
you don't see fans packing it in there just to "see a hockey game."
 
 
Some questions:
 
-- How are the ticket prices? If kids can't go see two European teams bash
heads for $5, you can bet their parents would stay home and watch TV.
 
-- How is the local media covering the tournament? Are there feature
stories on the cover of the sports sections in the Globe and Herald? How
about feature stories on TV news about New England kids in the tournament?
 
-- Do you think that there would have been a better crowd for the USA-Canda
game had it been played in the Fleet Center? I worked in Boston for four
years and was a student for four, and like many others in Greater Boston
never had a car. Games at Worcester were always a pain (Peter Pan Bus was
the only way to go)
 
-- Is it possible that Parker tried to capitalize on the "college-based"
crowd in Boston by using more college players than Junior players? Did this
actually help attendance?
 
 
greenie
 
S P O O N ! !
(go BU)
 
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