NCAA Hockey Tournament
Once again this year I attended the NCAA D1 Midwest Regional. This year the venue was the beautiful Fort Wayne Coliseum. On Saturday evening Miami OH bumped Alabama-Huntsville 2-1 and Michigan downed Bemidji State 5-1 in the semi-finals of the Regional. On Sunday at 8:00pm, Miami had a rematch against Michigan who handed them a 5-2 defeat in their CCHA semi-final game a few weeks back. In a great hockey game, Miami downed Michigan in double OT and advanced to the Frozen Four in Detroit's Ford Field in two weeks.
A couple thoughts. First and foremost, and I can't emphasize this enough, I am utterly surprised at how few people attend these games. I watched a number of games Friday on TV and most of the rinks looked relatively empty. Even after the NCAA changed up who played where (Yale was supposed to travel to Fort Wayne and Michigan was supposed to play in Worcester, but they were swapped to assist with ticket sales), it looked rare that a rink was half full. According to USCHO.com, the games averaged about 5000 fans, with a low of 3200 at the Michigan vs. Miami game late on Sunday evening. There were a lot of great games out there, I really can't understand why they are not better attended by hockey fans.
I realize that the NCAA didn't want to compete with their Basketball games, but starting a game at a few minutes after 8pm on a Sunday evening is not really fair. Around 1000 locals who attended the Sunday evening game left before it was finished. The crowd was down under 2500 when the game finished up at a few minutes before midnight. I didn't get home until after 2am and can appreciate why others who had to work Monday morning left early.
I was disappointed with the officiating. Denver lost to this years Cinderella team, RIT, when RIT scored it's game winning goal on a very iffy penalty in the third period of their game. Michigan should have scored the game winning goal in OT, but the official lost site of the puck and blew it dead less than a second before the never covered puck was put in the net for an apparent game-ending goal. But I was even annoyed by the sudden change in face-off standards that appeared this weekend. I've watched a couple dozen NCAA games on TV this season and never seen officials so intent on slowing down the game by constantly checking player position and tossing face-off men. When you finally decide to enforce the rules of the game in the end-of-the-season tournament after letting it go all season, you are going to annoy players, coaches and fans. Count me as annoyed.
So 30-40k of you have tickets to the Frozen Four in a week or so. Well, not too many of you who will be at Nationals. I know of a few people who are trying to sell their tickets as they now will be playing in one of the tournaments spread around the country. Who is buying? Not me. I just cannot get exited about watching a hockey game in a football stadium. I think the NCAA's greed is getting the better of them. The Final Four will be played this weekend at Lucas Oil Football Stadium in Indianapolis and the Frozen Four at Ford Field in Detroit. NCAA, please put these back into the venues that they belong. I have no issue with Michigan hosting Michigan State at the big house next winter for what could be the largest crowd ever to watch a hockey game. It's a great novelty and historic event. But please play the National Championship game in a hockey rink.
Now if only USA Hockey and the NCAA could figure out a way to host their National Championships on different weekends...
A couple thoughts. First and foremost, and I can't emphasize this enough, I am utterly surprised at how few people attend these games. I watched a number of games Friday on TV and most of the rinks looked relatively empty. Even after the NCAA changed up who played where (Yale was supposed to travel to Fort Wayne and Michigan was supposed to play in Worcester, but they were swapped to assist with ticket sales), it looked rare that a rink was half full. According to USCHO.com, the games averaged about 5000 fans, with a low of 3200 at the Michigan vs. Miami game late on Sunday evening. There were a lot of great games out there, I really can't understand why they are not better attended by hockey fans.
I realize that the NCAA didn't want to compete with their Basketball games, but starting a game at a few minutes after 8pm on a Sunday evening is not really fair. Around 1000 locals who attended the Sunday evening game left before it was finished. The crowd was down under 2500 when the game finished up at a few minutes before midnight. I didn't get home until after 2am and can appreciate why others who had to work Monday morning left early.
I was disappointed with the officiating. Denver lost to this years Cinderella team, RIT, when RIT scored it's game winning goal on a very iffy penalty in the third period of their game. Michigan should have scored the game winning goal in OT, but the official lost site of the puck and blew it dead less than a second before the never covered puck was put in the net for an apparent game-ending goal. But I was even annoyed by the sudden change in face-off standards that appeared this weekend. I've watched a couple dozen NCAA games on TV this season and never seen officials so intent on slowing down the game by constantly checking player position and tossing face-off men. When you finally decide to enforce the rules of the game in the end-of-the-season tournament after letting it go all season, you are going to annoy players, coaches and fans. Count me as annoyed.
So 30-40k of you have tickets to the Frozen Four in a week or so. Well, not too many of you who will be at Nationals. I know of a few people who are trying to sell their tickets as they now will be playing in one of the tournaments spread around the country. Who is buying? Not me. I just cannot get exited about watching a hockey game in a football stadium. I think the NCAA's greed is getting the better of them. The Final Four will be played this weekend at Lucas Oil Football Stadium in Indianapolis and the Frozen Four at Ford Field in Detroit. NCAA, please put these back into the venues that they belong. I have no issue with Michigan hosting Michigan State at the big house next winter for what could be the largest crowd ever to watch a hockey game. It's a great novelty and historic event. But please play the National Championship game in a hockey rink.
Now if only USA Hockey and the NCAA could figure out a way to host their National Championships on different weekends...
