At 01:26 PM 3/22/2004 -0800, Matt Sullivan wrote:
>Sucks to hear about the poor attendance at the ECAC tournament.  I guess
>were spoiled in the WCHA.  This years Final Five set a new attendance
>records with the UMD vs Minnesota game on Friday night (19,200+), then the
>final game of UND vs. Minnesota breaking the day old mark by about a
>hundred.  Also total attendance for the tournament was a record with over
>80,000 watching.  Hopefully the ECAC can get their league back to the
>point were they need to use the Pepsi Center b/c Lake Placid is not large
>enough.

I actually think Lake Placid is, indeed, large enough - at least right
now...I've been going
to the ECACs every year since 1995. I believe the 1980 rink at the Olympic
Center holds
about 8,000 people. Given the attendance in Albany this weekend, 8,000
seats would have
been more than enough.  Part of the "problem" is the teams that get to
Albany. Pretty much
all of the Ivies (with the HUGE exception of Cornell) don't have a big
travelling fan base.
Harvard & Dartmouth had OK and decent contingents in Albany this year, but
by no means
bring anything close to what feels like a packed house. If none of RPI,
Cornell, Clarkson, or
Union (maybe Vermont, but they won't count after next year) end up in the
semifinals, it would
not look pretty in Albany.

Would the Xcel Enery Center have 19,000 if the final was Alaska-Anchorage
vs Denver?
Maybe - and even so, it might be likely to comparatively draw more than
Albany would for a
Brown-Princeton final.

Also, it seems to me that the ECAC just doesn't market its teams as well as
the other of
the big 4 conferences. The CCHA, WCHA, and Hockey East are hockey-only
conferences
(correct?), whereas the ECAC isn't. There's not much widespread TV
coverage, so most
people in New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey don't realize there is
hockey outside of
the NHL. The ECAC needs to advertise better to attract the crowds.

Having said that, it was nice to see a huge billboard on I-787 near Albany
advertising the
ECAC championships. In addition, there were a few fans sitting in my
section that didn't
seem to be huge ECAC hockey fans, yet came out to watch. So, maybe they are
reaching
out to the public. Regardless, there's still more work to do. At this
point, I still miss Lake
Placid. If tickets for Lake Placid were as hot as Frozen Four tickets are
right now, then a
move to Albany might be warranted.

I also don't mean to be nitpicky, but in Albany, it's the Pepsi Arena. The
Pepsi *Center*
is in Denver.

-Andy