Pam, your problem is that you have too much regard for the truth.

I'm wondering whether anyone who's trying to get first impressions of 
the city had a chance to wander over to the old Joe Louis Arena (where I 
used to park on a cinder lot every day before they decided to build it) 
and look at the facility that holds and often attracts 20,000 (capacity: 
20,066) for any of the following annual college hockey events: Great 
Lakes Invitational Tournament, CCHA Conference Tournament, a couple 
Michigan-Michigan State regular season games.  There's also a team 
called The Red Something that plays there a couple times a week.  I'm 
curious about whether that facility would win out in a vote of fans.   I 
don't know whether NHL-size rink would have been prohibitive.  I haven't 
heard the rink size at Ford; perhaps it was the only option for an NCAA 
championship in Detroit.  Given that the rest of the city is the same 
Detroit either way, would the Joe have been a better choice?

I question whether the NCAA will conclude other than that they were 
sabotaged by a bad economy.  Given a thriving economy, why would they 
not be eager to rerun an exact duplicate of this scenario if they feel a 
better economy would provide more fools who'll buy tickets.  Pam's 
absolutely right about the unsatisfactory things being fully 
predictible.  Whether the economy produced 70,000 ticket sales or only 
one, the unsuitability of what was provided for the cost of that one 
ticket was predictable from the very beginning of the process.

Perhaps it's time to invent the NIT annual hockey tournament.

Bob Griebel




>> 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
>
>
>