While cleaning up some stuff this weekend, I found this article from
the Boston Globe. It was kind of interesting and gives a glimpse into
how things were going early on in Hockey East, as well as some of the
problems that the league faces now (i.e. attendance).
HOCKEY EAST: A DULL EDGE
Commentary by Joe Concannon, Boston Sunday Globe, March 8, 1987
When referee Richie Fowkes waved his arms and told the Boston College
and Providence hockey teams to go to their respective locker rooms with
one second left in last Sunday night's game at Providence's Schneider
Arena, he was doing everyone present a favor.
What he also may have done in his sane approach to a game that had
degenerated into an insane expression of the sport was recognize what
fans of the seven Hockey East colleges have recognized all season by
staying away.
Hockey East is in Year 3, a league created because the Ivy League deans
decreed that hockey seasons were too long, the competition on the ice
and for recruits too severe, and the nature of the game was such that
it was time to face up to reality.
Reality, the Ivy way, was to create a 12-team league under the ECAC
umbrella. The six Ivy teams can play 26 games; the six non-Ivies can
play 30. This means Harvard is locked into 22 ECAC games and two Beanpot
games, leaving room for two extra games.
Hockey East was born out of this morass, with BC, PC, Northeastern,
Boston University and New Hampshire as charter members (Maine and Lowell
joined as "expansion" members for the first season) entering into an
interlocking schedule with the eight-team Western Collegiate Hockey
Association. Interconference games counted in each conference's
standings.
In the first two years, each team met each other twice. Reality set in
again, and the HE-WCHA schedules called for just one game against each
other, forcing Hockey East members to play each other four times this
season. More, as we have seen, isn't always better.
What has resulted is hockey boredom. I can speak only from personal
experience. Except for the Beanpot, I have covered only five games
involving Hockey East teams and I would be hard pressed to say that
any of the five at NU, BU or PC drew close to 1,000 fans.
"It's a tough thing to play in Boston," said Maine coach Shawn Walsh
following a Sunday afternoon loss at NU's virtually deserted Matthews
Arena. (Maine is the one Hockey East school that does draw fans.
Consistently.) "There's never any fans, and it's tough to get
motivated."
The contrast to life in the ECAC is striking. The Harvard game at Yale
I saw drew an overflow crowd that stood four deep behind the seats.
Harvard-RPI and Harvard-Army sold out Harvard's Bright Center.
Competition, enthusiasm and skating add up to interest.
"This is the worst year I can remember for attendance," says one Hockey
East publicist who wonders about empty seats. "They haven't shown.
There might be too many games. I don't know if it can be cured with
marketing. It looks like it's a pivotal year."
The first Hockey East tournament in Providence Civic Center drew a
pitiful crowd, and BC and Providence were finalists in a marvelous
game. The second tournament didn't do any better, and this time BU
and BC were in the final.
The playoffs this year begin Tuesday, with BU meeting NU for the
*sixth* time in a game at BU. The semifinals are next Sunday in
Boston Garden, followed by the championship game next Monday. BC
and Lowell are in the semis, and either BU or NU will be.
The simple fact is that no one seems to care. Games are being played
for agents and pro scouts, who raid the press boxes for statistics and
cleaned out the Garden press room of Beanpot programs. "Isn't it what
they set out to create?" asks an ECAC voice of the professionalized
Hockey East atmosphere.
Hockey East's best young players are BC's Brian Leetch, Greg Brown and
Craig Janney and BU's Scott Young, and in all likelihood, all of them
will play for the US Olympic team next year, then turn pro. This is to
*their* credit, but it is a sign of the times.
"It's a Catch-22 situation," says the ECAC voice. "They get a guy for
one or two years, but fans like to watch a player for three or four
years." What compounds this is that BC has had a remarkable season as
a team of gypsies, and there is no guarantee it will have a home rink
next year, either.
Cornell's gifted Joe Nieuwendyk also is taking that route, leaving after
the season to sign with Calgary and possibly play for the Canadian
Olympic team. Cornell's usual sellout crowd chanted, "One more year...
one more year," after his three-goal farewell last Saturday.
The ECAC benefits by the fact that it's the only show in town in places
such as Potsdam, N.Y., Canton, N.Y., Ithaca, N.Y., Troy, N.Y.,
Burlington, Vt., and New Haven. The fact also is that the conference
went down to the wire, whereas Hockey East was already set, and went
through a meaningless countdown.
"Three teams that didn't make the playoffs (Princeton, Army, Dartmouth)
defeated three of the teams that did (Yale, Yale, St Lawrence respectively)
on the final weekend of the season," points out the ECAC's Joe Bertagna.
"And we entered the final weekend with three teams fighting for the
last playoff spot and five teams fighting for home ice."
The truth is that Hockey East is in trouble. There was a published
report that Notre Dame would join, but league commissioner Lou
Lamoriello has said, "I wish it were true, but it isn't." There have
been rumors RPI might join, but nobody counts on it.
It isn't in the cards, but should the WCHA decide to abandon its
interlocking schedule with Hockey East, then the Eastern conference is
in real trouble. BC and Harvard no longer play each other during the
regular season, leaving it up to the Beanpot to light up the midwinter
fires.
Hockey East's Dennis Hanks saves the media with his weekly newsletters,
since I never receive a note or brochure in the mail from BC, Providence
or Maine. From a league crying for recognition, this may be just a
small part of the reason Hockey East is a flawed concept.
There is a self-serving smugness to much of the rhetoric spewing from
the mouths of people who inhabit Hockey East, creating an atmosphere in
which players put futures ahead of team achievement. Maybe the fans who
are disguised as empty seats have sniffed all of this out.
END
My comments:
First, it was interesting for me to find this well-written criticism
of HE in the Globe considering that some ECAC fans believe that the
Boston media is too gung-ho for HE. On the other hand, things may
have changed since that time.
Thinking back to that time, I think much of what Concannon wrote was
true. But I also have seen a lot of improvement over the last 7 years.
Publicity has certainly gotten a lot better, and attendance went up
dramatically after the end of the interlocking schedule as teams like
UNH and BU became national powers and Maine & BU became championship
contenders. The 1992 HE championship game nearly sold out the Garden.
However, recently we have seen a decline - only three of the eight
schools (Maine, BU, UNH) sold out or nearly sold out every home game.
But on the other hand, some schools have had attendance problems for
a long time as we know - even in 1988, when Northeastern finished
second in HE, won the Beanpot and HE tourneys and hosted an NC$$ first
round series, the Huskies still were lucky to draw 2,000 a night -
one-third of capacity.
It is still true that the inability to keep top players around for
all four years has hurt the schools. What made the league most
successful in the late 80s and early 90s, I believe, was the fact that
more than just a couple of schools were fielding teams that were
capable of competing for an HE and NC$$ titles. As good players
were leaving early, others were still coming in at that school or
other schools. That's why more schools were drawing well at home
and on the road. 1990 and 1991 were probably the pinnacle years, with
BC, BU, Maine, UNH, and PC all icing superb teams. That's 5 of 8
schools.
Unfortunately, looking ahead to this season, I only see one team (BU)
that definitely fits this description, of competing for HE and NC$$
titles. Several others are capable of moving into this category,
but the potential exists for a lot of mediocrity in 94-95. That's one
reason I think it was a smart idea to reduce the quarterfinal round to
a single game, to improve the chances of increased attendance in this
season in which conference and NC$$ championship games will be played
within an hour of Boston for four consecutive weekends in March 1995.
I guess when it comes down to it, a conference is only as strong as
its members. The HE governors can do things like reduce the number
of playoff games and refuse the temptation to increase the league
schedule to 28 games, which nearly happened a few years ago. But it
will be up to the schools and coaches to ice a product that is
attractive to fans and to market it better to those fans.
--- ---
Mike Machnik [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc. *HMM* 11/13/93
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