North Country This week

[DarbCU]

Big games in the North Country this Week, #8 Clarkson at #1 St. Lawrence tonight. Any predictions?

[daredevilCU]

Clarkson 3, SLU 1

Clarkson with an ENG

[dave1381]

3-1 SLU win, that's the actual result.

2,136 fans tonight, that's awesome - I think that's a regular season record for any Eastern school (1,912 Dartmouth@Harvard in Jan. 2004 being the previous best.)

[SLUsaints]

3-1 SLU win, that's the actual result.

2,136 fans tonight, that's awesome - I think that's a regular season record for any Eastern school (1,912 Dartmouth@Harvard in Jan. 2004 being the previous best.)
Amazing game tonight. Crowd was rediculous, previous record was 912, blew it away. It had the atmosphere of a mens game, phenomenal. Everyone was treated to an amazing game to, SLU came out flat in the first but just kept plugging away. They were the better team tonight. Now I have to go write a game recap :)

[Richter547]

Also back from the game...

For the first period or so, the Clarkson women seemed to be controlling the game. However, since the start of the 2nd, SLU offense started to take control.

I'm satisfied that we played this well at Appleton, plus I think we'll be seeing a better game at Cheel.

[Hux]

3-1 SLU win, that's the actual result.

2,136 fans tonight, that's awesome - I think that's a regular season record for any Eastern school (1,912 Dartmouth@Harvard in Jan. 2004 being the previous best.)


That certainly is a big crowd for relatively small campuses. Great to see that the area supports the sport, and knows when there is a good game scheduled. The Harvard-Dartmouth game of '04 had those numbers because there was a big write up in the Boston Globe that day. The '05 game at Bright had about half as many turn out.

[dave1381]

The Harvard-Dartmouth game of '04 had those numbers because there was a big write up in the Boston Globe that day.
They had one feature on Angela Ruggiero the Friday before for the Sunday game? I don't think you can give the Globe that much credit for that game. The Bob Ryan column a few days in '03 before claiming the game would be the best show in town had a larger effect, I think, and 1741 showed despite a snowstorm.

The bigger reason I think is that Harvard was No. 1 in 03 and 04 with Ruggiero both years, and she was the main draw (plus Botts in 03). They weren't as touted in 05, even though the season ended the same way. I don't think Chu and Corriero ever put fans in the seats as much as Ruggiero.

Student support has been a big part of these strong Harvard-Dartmouth crowds. A lot of it comes from other coaches and athletes encouraging their teams to attend the games. The vast majority of Harvard students don't read the Globe at all.

[dave1381]

for those who don't bother to look at the front, USCHO recap: http://recaps/20052006/w/11/30/ckn-slu.php

[placid]

Crowd's also not bad when you consider population of Canton is 5,882.

Even adding Potsdam's 9,000 plus to the total, is still lot less potential fan-base to draw a crowd from than a game in the Boston area.

[dave1381]

Crowd's also not bad when you consider population of Canton is 5,882.

Even adding Potsdam's 9,000 plus to the total, is still lot less potential fan-base to draw a crowd from than a game in the Boston area.
True, but don't pretend that's an apples-to-apples comparison. There's also a lot less competition for things to do in the North Country, especially in terms of athletics. If there were no professional sports or other D-I athletics within 100 miles of Boston, women's hockey would get a lot larger crowds here too.

[SLUsaints]

True, but don't pretend that's an apples-to-apples comparison. There's also a lot less competition for things to do in the North Country, especially in terms of athletics. If there were no professional sports or other D-I athletics within 100 miles of Boston, women's hockey would get a lot larger crowds here too.
Well the thing is Dave, there obviously are better things to do in the north country. Our average attendance all year has been about 400, so the huge crowd turnout last night was a huge change. Appleton was LOUD. The student section was on its feet for the final two periods, which doesn't even happen for mens game. It was a very spirited event, hopefully their were a lot of first time fans to womens hockey thier last night and they liked what the saw. I hope it will translate into more fans for the future. The only downside is that we face Union at home next, so hopefully if those people return they don't feel like thier time is being wasted.

[daredevilCU]

I was at the game. There is NO WAY that there were 2100 people there. I believe Appleton seats around 2500? There were a lot more than 400 empty seats there. Don't get me wrong though, you guys did a real nice job of getting out to support your team, you did have a lot of people there.

[dave1381]

Well the thing is Dave, there obviously are better things to do in the north country. Our average attendance all year has been about 400, so the huge crowd turnout last night was a huge change. Appleton was LOUD. The student section was on its feet for the final two periods, which doesn't even happen for mens game. It was a very spirited event, hopefully their were a lot of first time fans to womens hockey thier last night and they liked what the saw. I hope it will translate into more fans for the future. The only downside is that we face Union at home next, so hopefully if those people return they don't feel like thier time is being wasted.
Sure, I've heard all that before. Harvard says the same thing every time they're good and play a rival who is really good. They have three levels of attendance -- about 2,000 when Harvard is No. 1 and playing a top 10 Dartmouth team, about 1,000 when Harvard's a top 10 team (not No. 1) playing a top 10 Dartmouth team, and about 300-400 in all other games.

The point of last post was, I don't think a crowd of 2,000 at St. Lawrence is any more impressive than a crowd of 2,000 at Harvard or vice versa. Both schools basically have the same skewed distribution of attendance, and the potential fan base is about the same even though the populations are different. Harvard women's hockey isn't going to draw the NBA/NHL/D-I diehard fan base any better than St. Lawrence is going to draw people who don't live within 100 miles.

[placid]

I was at the game. There is NO WAY that there were 2100 people there. I believe Appleton seats around 2500? There were a lot more than 400 empty seats there. Don't get me wrong though, you guys did a real nice job of getting out to support your team, you did have a lot of people there.

BTW, Appleton's 'seating' capacity is 3,000 and frequently can get crowds close to 4,000 including standing room. I have no doubt the figure they announced was very close to the actual crowd based on what i saw (an arena where every section had folks sitting in it, where several were totally filled and where people were standing behind seats all around the building as well

[moko]

I was at the game. There is NO WAY that there were 2100 people there. I believe Appleton seats around 2500? There were a lot more than 400 empty seats there. Don't get me wrong though, you guys did a real nice job of getting out to support your team, you did have a lot of people there.

They handed ticket stubs out for draws to everyone who came in. So i believe they would have a rough idea how many were there. Also it looked like a comparable crowd to the mens game vs union. Lets see if Clarkson can out do SLU on Friday night? I'm not sure how many SLU fans will make the trek down esp when the men play that night at home.

[SLUsaints]

They handed ticket stubs out for draws to everyone who came in. So i believe they would have a rough idea how many were there. Also it looked like a comparable crowd to the mens game vs union. Lets see if Clarkson can out do SLU on Friday night? I'm not sure how many SLU fans will make the trek down esp when the men play that night at home.

Exactly what I was going to say moko. From talking with the SID, she said that attendance is always estimated. HOWEVER, last night they were giving out the entry raffle tickets which they used to calculate the exact attendance. However, from speaking with one of the players today she said that the back doors were open, they usually only open for men's game. Apparently people came in the back door and the men's hockey team was there in attendance and they entered through the players entrance. So the figure was skewed down if anything.

[DarbCU]

SLUs average men's attendance this year is only 2048, and they got more than that on a wednesday night? Also, they weren't handing out the raffle tickets to Clarkson fans, so they can't judge it on just that.

[dave1381]

2-0 Clarkson after one, despite being outshot 11-3. Shots now 29-5 midway through the third.

1,846 attendance tonight.

[hab]

WOW!!! Clarkson continues to demonstrate that they have to be considered as a real threat to take all the marbles. Goaltending can be everything in this game and there can be no question that Clarkson has outstanding goaltending.

[Richter547]

Bye bye undefeated season!

Very good game from start to finish. Kira Hurley probably played the best game of her career. And the Knights were able to stay disciplined and keep the puck to the outside.

Great job Lady Knights!