I was thinking about Steve's questions about the Gophers' hockey profits while driving home last night. He questioned Carol's estimate of "over $1 million". I think it's a reasonable one. First of all, the Gophers had 22 home games (3 playoff, 1 vs. U. of Calgary, for you game-counters out there). Attendance ranged from 6248 (against Calgary) to 7778 (against Duluth) (they say it's 7594 capac, so I guess that includes some standees). Tickets range from $5.50 (Student Season tickets) to $12 (almost all single-game tickets). I believe $.50 of this is a surcharge to finance the construction of the new arena, but let's make some estimates: Assuming 7,000 people per game for 22 games (154,000) at $10 per ticket (maybe a slight overestimate) gives $1.54 million. ------------ Recall, also, that one of those games was standing room only at Met Center (about 15000) and that the North Stars guaranteed the U at least 3 times its normal take. (I seem to recall reading somewhere that Minn. made over $100,000 on that game.) Then there's concessions, souvenirs, and parking (up AGAIN this year to $4 a pop, but don't get me started...) TV and radio money might be slightly better in the Mpls-StP market than other college hockey cities. It's about the 14th largest media market in the country. According to my program, 31 games were carried on TV this year. (Although I seem to recall that coverage of one of the St. Cloud State away games was snowed out! That doesn't count coverage of 4 WCHA playoff games.) (This also in part explains why people around here were so irate that they couldn't see the NC$$ playoff games on TV - like we'd really drive 12 hours each way to go see one game anyway, but I guess I'd better not let myself get started on that one, either!) In summary, then, it seems to me to be quite reasonable for Gopher hockey to have made $1 million last year, as they probably had about $1.5 million in ticket sales, made over $100,000 just from the Wisconsin game at the Met Center, and had about 3/4 of their games on local TV in a relatively large (for college hockey) metropolitan area. I guess now we can see why Doug Woog had a Graduate assistant this year work on a study of "The Economic Impact of Hockey in Minnesota"! Pam Sweeney Go Gophers!!!