Mike Zak writes:
>
> The main aspect that has been over looked is that Boston is more
> of a hockey town than Albany is, by several orders of magnitude.  In
> this respect, there a probably hundreds of more non-collegiate
> affiliated hockey fans that would go to all of the games at HockeyFest
> than those in Albany who would go to the ECAC games.  Albany does have
> RPI and Union, but Boston has Harvard, BU, BC, Northeastern and
> Merrimack as Div. I schools that would provide a certain number of fans
> regardless of whose playing.  Finally I would guess that 75% of the
> ECAC people who would go to Albany, would also go to Boston.
 
Boston is a great pro hockey town.  It is also a great Hockey East
town...it is a great high school hockey town....but it is not a great
ECAC hockey town.  There are too many other outlets for getting a hockey
fix for many fans to casually attend the ECAC semis.  I will bet that
90%+ of the fans who attended on Friday were associated with one of the
schools.
 
Albany, on the other hand, is a great ECAC town.  With RPI and Union
nearby anyone with even a casual interest in the sport attends ECAC
games.  In fact, RPI easily outdraws all the teams that you
mentioned with the possible exception of BC (which has shamelessly
padded its attendance figures at every game I've been to that didn't
have BU as an opponent).  At least half of the RPI fans are not
students.  Union also drew very well for a school that was expected to
lose every game that it played.  As they get more competitive you can
expect to see full houses at Achilles Rink.
 
What does the ECAC want to be...an afterthought in a "great hockey
town," or undisputed King of the Hill in a "great ECAC hockey town"
(which by the way is more convenient for 90% of the league's fans)?
 
Jon Greene
RPI '82   Cornell '84
Data General, Westboro, MA
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