> I think that if RPI (host), Clarkson, St. Lawrence, Colgate, Cornell,
> or
> Union had been the ECAC champion, things might have been different with
> attendance in Albany. In conctrast, the Northeast Regionals in
> Manchester
> have been sold out for months.

Well RPI definitely, Cornell and Clarkson would have helped.  But the
issue with attendance in Albany is three teams---losing the additional
two teams has hurt.  Maine always brings a nice contingent but other
teams like New Hampshire brought fan$$ too.  Plus this year's extremely
mediocre crop of ECAC teams has taken the allure of college hockey out
of the Capital District.  Despite the popularity of Wisconsin in the
area. the nightcap only drew 5000 fans.   So the recipe for failure
attendance-wise was in place:  three teams that bring no none with them
and a local base of apathetic fans.

And artistic-wise, I wouldn't say the two games were masterpieces.  The
first game, despite the write-ups in the papers, featured gross
shot-exaggeration by the official scorer, and another third period
melt-down by a Harvard team which had been doing them all season.  If
last night's game was a true representation of Maine's Jimmy Howard
then only one word comes to mind--overrated.  As for the second game,
there is also one word--BORING.  This is not the Wisconsin team I
remember.  Last night's team seemed to have no one knew how to score,
certainly no one who could make a play down low.  And the power play,
well the Badgers should have just declined the whole thing and let play
continue even strength.

As usual the Pepsi Arena was brutally hot.  As Mark Lewin pointed out
at the ECAC Championships, the result is that the ice tends to be a
little soft, with the players slipping a lot at the beginning of the
periods.  The Pepsi only utilizes one Zamboni so the ice doesn't have
enough time to harden up before the players come back out.  I wish the
management could figure this out since I've seen the same problems at
River Rat games.

It will be interesting to see the attendance at the other regional
sites--Denver I guess was OK, and New Hampshire is a sell-out--but I am
worried about the future of the 16 team  play-offs.  With two teams
coming from conferences severely inferior to the other four, and one of
the four--the ECAC--in the throes of a steady decay in talent, one has
to wonder whether there is enough quality in the tournament to generate
fan interest.  Or maybe it's just a case of the rich getting richer as
the teams with the biggest home arenas get the best players, and so on.
  But until this year Albany had been able to generate a fair attendance
for the Regionals, as high as 11,000 in 1994.  The future I think is
uncertain.
************************************************************************
******
Brian Morris                        RPI Engineers
[log in to unmask]       Awaiting a return to glory