> I find it hard to believe > that they'd give up on it after just one year, but 3800? ouch! I heard on the radio during the Wisconsin-SLU game today that 3800 was the announced attendance for the Western regional but in reality the attendance was closer to 2,000. Obviously this is something they heard from a reporter in Detroit, since they were in Providence. Can anyone confirm that? > >Mindbender of the week: How did the NC$$ authorities figure out that > >it is OK to telecast to Anchorage, but not to Minneapolis or Marquette? Or Madison, or East Lansing. As Mark Grassl reported, one of the Madison TV stations tried to cover today's game and was turned down by the NCAA. According to the papers here, the NCAA contacted them, through the school, yesterday. They lined up all the advertisers, and then got a call back from the NCAA saying the blackout was in effect for all games except Alaska. Someone (Laing Kennedy?) was on the radio between periods today, and he said they had to turn them down because they had turned down Maine's TV station, and they owed it to the local organizers. Unlike our previous complaints about the NCAA, this one should be targeted at the NCAA Ice Hockey committee -- they *totally* fumbled the regional tournaments. I supported the format when we discussed it last year (not that my opinion counts for anything amongst the decision-makers), because I thought it meant they were serious about making it a better tournament. Why did they schedule the regionals thursday-saturday and friday-sunday if they didn't expect to get regional TV coverage of the whole thing? If TV wasn't a factor, wouldn't it have made more sense to go Fri-Sat or Sat-Sun with BOTH regionals? Fed up with the NCAA but happy for the Badgers, --david ps: I am making plans to go to Albany....