At 11:35 PM 3/16/96, MR ADAM C WODON wrote:
>   For all the problems with being in the middle of nowhere, Lake
>Placid outdrew the Fleet Center this weekend!!
 
USAToday's boxes reported the attendance in LP as 6,802 Fri and 8,300 Sat.
The FleetCenter drew 8,238 Fri and 8,969 Sat.  But the FC was half full
while LP was basically full.
 
HE depends much more on getting the right teams to its Final Four than the
ECAC, IMO.  If the teams were, say, Maine, BU, UNH, and UMass (this
obviously couldn't have happened this year since BU-UMass and Maine-UNH
were qfinal matchups), then the attendance would have soared as it did in
93 when Maine and UNH played in the final.
 
Lowell had a good showing, but PC did not have many fans.  I also think
that if the final was Maine-BU, attendance would have easily topped 10,000
and more.  And, many people interested in BU may have stayed away from the
final when BU lost on Friday.
 
Only a huge Maine contingent saved the Sat turnout from being below what LP
drew.  And I can't imagine what the FC might wind up with if there was ever
a HE Final Four consisting of, say, Merrimack, PC, Northeastern, and Lowell
(Lowell having the best fan base of the four).
 
I suppose this is the case with the other conferences too (imagine UAF,
Ferris, UIC, and OSU making the Joe).  But if you took the fan base of the
top four HE teams (following-wise, not finish) and compared it to the fan
base of the top four from the other three conferences, I think HE would
come in last.
 
---                                                                   ---
Mike Machnik                   [log in to unmask]            *HMM* 11/13/93
>> Co-owner of the College Hockey Lists at University of Maine System  <<
*****       Unofficial Merrimack Hockey home page located at:       *****
*****   http://www.tiac.net/users/machnik/MChockey/MChockey.html    *****
 
HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey;  send information to
[log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.