>Venue:	The politest thing i can say is that there were plenty of rest
>	rooms and the food lines weren't as long as other places
>
>	Ice quality: horrible is probably an understatement.
>	Rink Placement: there are a couple of choices that might have
>			been better. The biggest flaw was not putting
>			the boards close enough to permanent seating.
>			That left a woid between the ice surface and
>			the permanent stands. Given that the front row
>			of stands is about 4 feet above ground level,
>			there is a serious problem with sight lines. I
>			am utterly amazed that nobody gecognized that.

The corrections for this:  
1) move rink closer to stadium seats so that there are no risers behind the player benches
2)  Improve pitch of risers on the other side of the field
Both essentially work toward lowering the usable seating capacity to that of a large hockey rink.

>	Sight lines:	Despite the ESPN reporter's assertion that site
>                        lines were excellent, the number of rows of
>                        empty seats behind the benches is ample
>			testimony against that.

Not being equipped with X-ray vision, I don't think I can say anything even reasonably polite about the sight lines from the RS seats.

>	Committee:	My thanks to the NCAA D-I Ice Hockey committee
>			members (three of whom i think i'm on a first
>			name basis with) for daring to take this risk.
>			Had the experiment been a success, it would
>			have improved the breed. As it is, staging the
>			championships in a football stadium provided a
>                        whole lot of information.

Sorry, I can't thank them.  I've been trying to decide if they should be tarred and feathered before or after being forced to watch the championship game from the $189 seats in Sections RS37 and RS38 behind the player benches.  

If deciding to try this experiment, they at least bear some responsibility to make sure that the fans they soaked for the money got a reasonable experience out of it.  It was mismanagement bordering on fraud to sell those seats to their most loyal ticket buyers for $189, and then to sell the less-bad seats in the arena for $40.

-Pam Sweeney