> <<One final question: does this mean no WCHA arena with beer? > >> > > The Colorado Springs World Arena has beer. Maybe in a full season it will > loosen up some of the shy CC fans to make some noise :-) DU Arena had beer. You could even bring it back to your seat! I don't know if the new arena will have it. The DECC in Duluth has a beer garden. At least it did a few years ago when I was up there. The Kohl Center has beer in the Blue Line Club. But they only can serve it for 1.5 hours before the game and 1 hour after. Not during the game. Someone else mentioned that the luxury boxes have beer also. It makes me laugh when they put out over the PA 'No alcoholic beverages are allowed' when you can look over and see them drinking in the boxes. A double standard. I liked the Kohl Center for hockey. My buddy thought otherwise, probably because it was still too new and a tradition hasn't been established there yet. The Dane County Coliseum is still too fresh in our memories. Good points: 1) Sight lines (I've got great seats compared to my seats at the Coliseum) 2) PA system is much better, you can actually hear what they're saying. 3) Scoreboard: They list stats between periods and there's room for 5 player penalties. 4) Foghorn: new, blown when UW scores a goal. Bad points: 1) NO BEER. 2) Hallways are too crowded between periods because there aren't a couple of thousand people in the beer garden. People are wandering around aimlessly between periods. 3) The hockey team won't get much time to practice there since they play basketball there too. They'll still practice at the Coliseum or the Forum next to the Coliseum. That's why they made the ice sheet exactly the same size as the Coliseum and Forum. Womens hockey note: The UW womens inaugural hockey game will be October 8, 1999 at the Kohl Center against UM-Duluth. Sounds like they will be shuffling around next year for home sites, between the Kohl Center, Coliseum, and Hartmeyer (small city-owned rink) Arenas. Rich HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.