I'd just like to throw my $.02 into the fray. What follows are some
comments made by Wayne ***** in his recent posting and my uncensored
replies.
1) Additional and/or relocated concessions and rest rooms are needed.
SP:
I couldn't agree with you more.
2) Additional locker rooms and office space are more important than the
additional seating.
SP:
You are starting to sound like an administrator. Maybe your right, but
you didn't back this claim with any hard statistics. Why do they need
more office space? Why more locker rooms? I thought they just built
new locker rooms. It is true that the players are getting bigger!!
3) OK, OK, everyone claims they can't get into see the hockey games. The
additional seating should let everyone get in and bring the beleaguered
UM Athletic Dept. a needed revenue boost. *I don't believe it.* Yea,
80+ games have been played to a full-house (I forget the actual wording
of the press babble), but the truth is that NO ONE has been turned away
who is willing to wait until game time to get in. Only a handful of
games last season had 4400+. Though the methods of counting may have
changed now and then, basically this is the number of tickets sold, not
people attending.
There is something special about a contest in front of a full-house.
The challenge for the Athletic Dept. is to fill that new seating on an
ongoing basis. Once tickets become easy to get, Maine attendance
could DROP to levels most other Eastern schools see.
SP:
Oh contrair. I for one know of a great deal of people (student friends
and family) who feel that getting a ticket is too much of a time sink.
As a graduate student, I've been subject to 3+ hour hockey lines,
occasionally being turned away because they are sold out. In recent
semesters, I had to be in class during "ticket give away times", which
made getting a ticket a moral issue. My parents love to attend Maine
hockey games (121 miles one way), but I usually have to buy three
balcony tickets, thus giving up my *already paid for* (sports pass)
ticket, just so I can sit with them.
Do you really think that fans attend the games because tickets are so
hard to get? You mean if they are easy to get I'll lose interest??
4) The following comments don't pertain much to College_Hockey, but are
important to the expansion project and to me and the rest of the local
community:
It is proposed that Men's and Women's Basketball be played at the Alfond
Arena (they now play 15 miles from campus, in Bangor). It is hoped that
student interest in basketball can be rekindled with this move (fans
outnumber the players and officials at Men's Basketball games now, but
not by much).
Well, the original Alfond Arena was proposed as a multi-purpose arena
but has been used exclusively for ice skating from early September thru
mid April each year. It is most often in use from 5am through 1am
during this period. Adding basketball games and practice times (as well
as time to put down and take up the basketball floor) will further
overload the facility.
In the name of big-time sports, the community, non-revenue and
recreational sports use of the Alfond will decline dramatically. Area
youth hockey, for which I have special fondness, owes its origins and
continuing health to (access to) the Alfond Arena.
We need to play basketball on our ice surface about as much as we need
to play football under a dome (a wish-list item of the UM Athletic Dept.
the past couple of years).
SP:
Yeah, you tell em. I stand with you on these last issues, although it
would be nice to bring the basketball games back onto campus (where
they belong).
Okay, anyone else?
Logout,
Steve Philbrick "Treat a child as though (s)he already is
University of Maine the person (s)he's capable of becoming."
[log in to unmask] HAIM GINOTT
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