Lowell seems to be off to a pretty decent start attendance-wise in their new building. The one thing that is lacking to this point is the support of the student body. With two more home games against strong opponents, hopefully that will change and we'll see a good strong student section next season. Its too bad the opening game was such a snoozer ... but Lowell was likely to get many converts from the largely VIP audience that night anyhow. Up to now, Lowell's strongest support has cetainly come from the community as well as large visiting team fan numbers. Lowell should continue to have a strong presence in the youngster market ... riding their strong "Young-Star" program from recent years at Tully. What remains to be seen, however ... is what impact the new AHL team will have on Riverhawk attendance. One of the major disadvantages the college game has in such challenges is the ban on alcoholic beverages at all NCAA events. You know the Lock Monsters will be selling a good deal of beer! The New York Islanders have recently announced that the Lowell Lock Monsters will be their #1 affiliate. Furthermore, the Islanders are going to bring their training camp to Tsongas next year as well as some NHL exhibition games. Islanger GM Mike Milbury was recently in town to make these announcements and he said a big fan interest could be the intra-squad games that will available. Asked about the make-up of these intra-squad games and Milbury commented that all you had to do to imagine what these games are like is to think of 60+ players vying for 20 or so NHL roster spots ... "put it this way" he said, "the puck won't be in the corners very long without a good deal of company". HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.