Tom Rowe writes:
>Actually, never having met him (and I'm donning a
>flame retardant suit right now - forgive me Mike for I am about to sin), I
>would suggest the perfect person to head such a group is Mike Machnik, voice
>of the Merrimack Warriors.
 
Well, first, I would just point out that the honor of voice of the
Merrimack Warriors actually belongs to play-by-play man Dan Roche.  I am
the color man, but thanks for the support. :-)  Boston-area folks can catch
Dan this season on weekends doing the Red Sox pre- and post-game shows on
WRKO, 680 AM.  Baseball is Dan's first love (well, second next to wife Pam)
and that comes across when you listen to him on 'RKO.
 
Although I am honored by the suggestion, I'm not sure that any group of us
could do more than those involved more closely with the game have already
tried to do to increase the exposure of college hockey.  You may recall the
attempt that was made to get some regular season games on ESPN last year.
HE commish Stu Haskell was a driving force behind this, yet it didn't come
off due to lack of interest by ESPN, apparently.
 
Although some may point to the huge rise in popularity of the hoop tourney
over the last decade and hope that college hockey can aspire to something
similar, I don't think for a moment that this will happen.  Hockey will
never reach the level of popularity of hoop, and we need to realize this
first of all.  But it wasn't that long ago that hoop was a second-class
event and it gradually got bigger as ESPN and then CBS began televising a
larger percentage of the tourney games.  Similarly, hockey seems to have
had an increase in tv coverage recently, though it is of a smaller
magnitude.  Last year no regional games were on tv; this year, 3 of the 4
Eastern games were on.  All of the conference semifinal and championship
games were shown on tv in New England, a total of 12 games.  That has never
happened before.  Most of those were also carried elsewhere in the US.
 
I do think it is a reasonable aspiration to hope that someday, the national
championship game might be carried live by one of the major networks on
"free" tv, such as CBS which bought the rights to show many of the NC$$
championship events including baseball.  It could be a nice lead-in to
the women's hoop championship on Sunday afternoon, for example.  But with
even the NHL, which is not as regional as college, having trouble getting a
decent amount of network coverage, this is likely still a number of years
off.
 
I'd also point out that it is certainly very important for fans to give
feedback to their local cable and even national outlets who cover games
that you want to see, such as ESPN, Prime, PASS, NESN, etc.  If they hear
nothing, they have to assume no one is interested, and that's why we see
tractor pulls instead of college hockey.  And as someone pointed out,
advertising plays a huge role; if it looks like no one is watching, no one
will advertise, thus no hockey.
 
I'll leave the "etc." for another message since this turned out to be long.
---
Mike Machnik    [log in to unmask]   Color Voice of the Merrimack Warriors
alternate address days: [log in to unmask]             *HMN*  11/13/93
(Any opinions expressed above are strictly those of the poster.)