On the specific issue of having the Phinal Phour in Anaheim, I think that
it's going to be an attendance disaster.  College hockey isn't going to
create a whole bunch of new fans in the area with three games in three days.
 There isn't a large fan base there to begin with.  While those of us on the
list sound as if we're going to be there in abundance (I will be), we aren't
exactly a representative sample of the college hockey fan base.  I don't
think that there will be a huge number of people who plan there whole
vacation structure around going to Southern California for a hockey
tournament.
 
Besides which, the Phinal Phour only draws really big crowds for a team that
is almost local, in particular folks who show up on Saturday after their team
has won the semis.  We had the Maize and Blue river that poured down I75, the
BU fans in Providence and so forth.  I had a lot of trouble unloading an
extra pair of seats I had picked up in St. Paul two years ago, and that was
with the Gophers in the event, but not thought likely to win the first game.
 
In general, I think a lot of people are jumping to the conclusion that hockey
is really going to take off.  There was a previous expansion of the NHL into
the south (the Atlanta Flames, anyone?) and it didn't last.  Already, the LA
Kings have had trouble getting fans into the building, even before they
traded away Gretzky.  Before people talk about how the Cup Finals in Miami
will help build a fan base, remember that they had one of those in LA, too.
 
This will be exacerbated by the Gary Bettman/NBA approach to building the
game.  I'm afraid that what he ends up with are fans interested in the
spectacle but not as much into hockey, per se.  Beyond having aesthetic
qualms about the arena filling up these kinds of fans, I don't suspect that
they are they most loyal bunch.  The NBA is starting to experience some of
this, and it has a larger natural base (far more people play youth and pickup
basketball than play hockey) than hockey does.
 
So, I don't think that college hockey ought to put too many eggs in the
basket of extending it's regional support.  And I certainly think that those
of us trying to get tickets in Milwaukee for next year ought to be given
priority if we agree to buy tickets for Anaheim.
 
J. Michael Jackson
 
HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey;  send information to
[log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.