Greg Ambrose writes: >Carl Sussman writes: [I think the original post was by Greenie] >>>In a way I almost kind of wish that no Boston team would have made it to >>>the final four this year, as the house would have been filled only with >>>solid hockey fans and not bandwagon jumpers. Now *that* would have been the >>>best way to judge if Boston is "hockeytown" or not. >>That's not necessary, I can tell you conclusively that Boston is not >>hockeytown. I was at the Fleet last night for a Bruins game. After one of >>the most impressive single-season turnarounds I've ever seen, the Bruins >>are headed to the playoffs. You would think the Boston fans would be >>excited -- instead the place was dead and empty. Now I'll grant that Bruin >>ticket prices are absurd (cheapest seats in the place were $29 -- even in >>New York you can get the cheap seats for under $20), but this was >>ridiculous. (Of couerse, my perspective may have been a bit skewed -- I >>had to have been the only Rangers fan at a Bruins-Islanders game). >>Anyway, isn't it Detroit that calls itself "hockeytown"? >Please, if Boston is not a hockey town, where is there one - Albany, >Cincinnati, Denver, Providence? Only on Hockey L could there be discussion >like this about a town which banged out the Fleet Center for three >consecutive games, setting NCAA attendance records in the process. >I may be provincial, but the newspaper coverage of this tournament far >exceeded what I have seen in any other town during the NCAA's. Now >granted, BC being in the final had something to do with it but college >hockey consistently outdraws college basketball in this town year after >year. It was nice to see the print media (television is hopeless) awake to >this fact. Don't forget, this was the first time in a while that the Frozen Four hasn't been opposite the squeak-ball Final Four, which may have a lot to do with its share of media attention. But I think you've hit the nail on the head: Boston's reputation is as a *College* Hockeytown. Lack of attendance at Bruins games may just mean that Bostonians have figured out that college hockey is a much better deal than the NHL. As you've said, it's cheaper (and you're comparing a RS Bruins game to the NCAA championship) and it's a lot more fun. Withing the span of a month last year I attended two NHL games (in Chicago and New York) and five NCAA Division I games (three at Cornell, one at Vermont and one at Dartmouth), and was struck by the juxtaposition. The college games were a much more enjoyable experience, and the average ticket price was under $10. John Whelan, Cornell '91 <[log in to unmask]> <http://www.cc.utah.edu/~jtw16960/joe.html> Learn about the NCAA selection process on the web at http://www.slack.net/~whelan/cgi-bin/tbrw.cgi?pairwise HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.