The Minnesota phenomenon  may be a catch-22.  The fan base may have
grown hugely because of the TV contracts but the number of people who
are willing to travel may be limited by the fact that some fans find
it much more convenient to just watch on TV; no time off from work, no
expensive airline reservations (or long drives with outrageous
gasoline prices), no overpriced hotels or restaurants as well as the
wonderful prices and quality of foods available at the arena.

And, I'm not sure I would want to commit to this cost just to spend a
quality weekend in Columbus, Ohio (and this is coming from someone who
lives in the excitemnt of Albany,NY).

If it was just for the hockey, the diehards and fans of the
participating schools would go. To get the average fan to go, you need
a circus atmosphere like the basketball final four or the Superbowl,
but that carnival atmosphere just makes the tickets hard to come by,
drives the ticket prices up and drives the cost of the fans' trip up.

We may just have to realize that we can't have it both ways.  As far
as the basketball final four is concerned, I'm happy the way it is.
I've heard from several unrelated sources that the money raised by the
NCAA basketball tournament pays for the championships in all other
sports.  Let them turn basketball into a carnival as long as it keeps
paying hockey's bill. If they try turning hockey into the same type of
circus, it will never work as hockey has a smaller fan base.

And while we're talking about the tournament, did the NCAA ever
publicly disclose a reason for delaying the Frozen Four the extra
week?  Did they think that the same people who go to the basketball
ball Final Four also go to the hockey Final Four. They could very
easily have avoided the TV competition by making the hockey semifinals
Friday and finals on Sunday while keeping basketball on Saturday and
Monday.  I suppose the hockey fans would suffer (especially the
participant fans) since they would have only one week to plan a trip
if their team qualified but I would think the coaches, players and
fans would  want the National tournament on the weekend following the
regionals to keep their morale and momentum going.

Any other thoughts?

On Apr 2, 2005 4:55 PM, J. Michael Neal <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Clay Satow wrote:
>
> >There is an interesting demographic this year.  Two participants relatively far away, with loyal,
> >but small fan bases.  One team with a loyal, reasonably sized, willing to travel fan base, about
> >1000 miles from Columbus.  And probably the largest, most loyal fan base of any college hockey
> >team.
> >
> >I've rambled a bit, but I'm interested in what other folks think.
> >
>
> The Gopher fan base may be large and loyal, but Minnesotans don't travel
> well. Doesn't matter what sport. I can't tell you what it is,
> particularly given that we live next door to the world's largest
> travelling carnival; Badger fans would be there in droves if you held
> the Frozen Four in Pyongyang. There just aren't that many North Dakota
> fans, though they travel well and punch above their weight. Denver and
> CC are really small, and really far away. So, there really isn't any
> significant draw to any of these teams.
>
> In all honesty, as much as it's too bad that people like John Whelan are
> stuck with extra tickets, I'm kind of glad to see something like this
> happen every few years. Unlike a lot of people, I see almost no upside
> to a dramatic increase in the popularity of college hockey. It's hard
> enough to get tickets as it is. (Though, it's easy for me to say, since
> my team has had a TV contract that shows alomst every game since I moved
> up here eighteen years ago.) Anything that works to convince the NCAA
> that this isn't the basketball tourney, and they can't just turn it into
> a ridiculous cash cow has positive consequences far beyond the costs.
>
> My father and I have missed only one Frozen Four since 1989. When the
> NCAA announced that they were going to switch to the system of allowing
> everyone to submit ten applications, we decided that this year was going
> to be our last. In addition to the difficulty of getting tickets, they
> were turning the Frozen Four into an event that we simply did not feel
> comfortable supporting. The response to a low turnout may keep us coming.
>
> J. Michael Neal
>