City: not nearly as bad as expected
Airport Transportation: probably the worst i've seen. There aren't any
low cost options other than a 1 hour bus ride
on a city bus
Motel: pretty good - in hotel dining a bit limited. fortunately
there were close by options
People Mover: a really nice option.
Local Arrangements: kudos to the organizing committee. food and
beverage options after the game, unlike st.
louis, were plentiful. good information at
the booths in the hotels
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.
crowd control: lousy, but understandable given the venue.
accomodation: I think there was probably a reasonable
attempt made to accomodate those who
persevered enough to find a place to ask for
accomodation
crowd: i think 30,000 is an overstatement.
revenue: in years past, the 3 game package cost around
$180. Billboards in detroit were advertizing
$40 packages. I'm speculating that the revenue
did not increase significantly. Add the extra
set up costs for temporary bleachers and
icemaking, and perhaps the net revenue is down
significantly from prior years.
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.
Lesson Learned: To conclude that this experiment did anything
more than provide additional evidence that
that hockey, especially national collegiate
championships, should be staged in arenas
designed for hockey, would be a
misrepresentation.
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.
Future: Lets hope the community (fans, schools, coaches,
conferences, committees, ncaa staff, and local
stagers) will learn from this information to
improve the tournament in the future.
--
charlie shub on his laptop work: (719) 255-3492
[log in to unmask] cell: (719) 761-8778
http://www.cs.uccs.edu/~cdash fax: (719) 255-3369
|
