Re: How was Chicago?
This was our first Frozen Four, so my perspective may be a little different. Our tickets (though Harvard allotment) were in the 12th row lover section corner, and went for about 3rd tier face value, it sounds like.
As expected, the hockey was great! My team lost in the first game, which means the rest of the weekend events were critical to our having a good time. One quibble about the arena arrangements was why in the world did the Crimson (and their coaches) have to enter and exit the rink from the end Zamboni driveway when they had a perfectly good tunnel behind their bench. Denver did not seem to have this issue.
The flights were apparently a mess all weekend, but you can't really say that O'Hare isn't a big enough airport with too few flights. One of ours Tuesday was cancelled, and we barely got there in time as a result. I understand that the Harvard Band's flight plans also vanished.
Chicago, as a place where we were stuck for 48 hours between games? Really great! We got the T transit pass (cheap enough) and the museum pass (not cheap) and that kept us pretty busy. The commute out to the arena was not hard - we went once by train, once walked (Saturday was beautiful), and rode the convenient #19 bus (lined up) back to the loop twice. Nobody told us not to take the train.
I don't think the arena location is remote so much as that no restaurants or bars have been opened in the nearby blocks - something that must have to do with zoning or market forces, or I don't know what. Any one of those huge single surface parking lots could be made into quite the festive place to be, with parking if you still need it underneath. It could at least be something like Gillette stadiums little outdoor mall, but far better if you could get mom and pop Chicago businesses in there too. Oh, and it is ridiculous that one can't leave and re-enter between games. No wonder nobody wants to open a business nearby.
The NCAA really did not communicate with us well at all! Yes, we got our tickets from Harvard, so maybe we missed the mailings and emails. I'll bet if NCAA sent them to Harvard, we'd have received them though. So our only notice about Navy Pier autograph sessions was a single PA message that we could just barely make out. When we got there, it seemed as if they were setting up for a Hobey Baker ceremony as well, but nobody invited us to that one. Fan Fest we also heard about via PA (once) but did not hear any details, so hard to know if this was something we wanted to make the trip out to the remote arena area 4 hours early for.
All in all, a fine weekend. But will we go back to the Frozen Four again or year after year in less interesting cities if our team isn't in it, buying balcony tickets from Ticketmaster or a 3rd party scalper? It seems unlikely, but that may be more about the (one team) fans that we are. I did enjoy that DU-UMD final, though!
This was our first Frozen Four, so my perspective may be a little different. Our tickets (though Harvard allotment) were in the 12th row lover section corner, and went for about 3rd tier face value, it sounds like.
As expected, the hockey was great! My team lost in the first game, which means the rest of the weekend events were critical to our having a good time. One quibble about the arena arrangements was why in the world did the Crimson (and their coaches) have to enter and exit the rink from the end Zamboni driveway when they had a perfectly good tunnel behind their bench. Denver did not seem to have this issue.
The flights were apparently a mess all weekend, but you can't really say that O'Hare isn't a big enough airport with too few flights. One of ours Tuesday was cancelled, and we barely got there in time as a result. I understand that the Harvard Band's flight plans also vanished.
Chicago, as a place where we were stuck for 48 hours between games? Really great! We got the T transit pass (cheap enough) and the museum pass (not cheap) and that kept us pretty busy. The commute out to the arena was not hard - we went once by train, once walked (Saturday was beautiful), and rode the convenient #19 bus (lined up) back to the loop twice. Nobody told us not to take the train.
I don't think the arena location is remote so much as that no restaurants or bars have been opened in the nearby blocks - something that must have to do with zoning or market forces, or I don't know what. Any one of those huge single surface parking lots could be made into quite the festive place to be, with parking if you still need it underneath. It could at least be something like Gillette stadiums little outdoor mall, but far better if you could get mom and pop Chicago businesses in there too. Oh, and it is ridiculous that one can't leave and re-enter between games. No wonder nobody wants to open a business nearby.
The NCAA really did not communicate with us well at all! Yes, we got our tickets from Harvard, so maybe we missed the mailings and emails. I'll bet if NCAA sent them to Harvard, we'd have received them though. So our only notice about Navy Pier autograph sessions was a single PA message that we could just barely make out. When we got there, it seemed as if they were setting up for a Hobey Baker ceremony as well, but nobody invited us to that one. Fan Fest we also heard about via PA (once) but did not hear any details, so hard to know if this was something we wanted to make the trip out to the remote arena area 4 hours early for.
All in all, a fine weekend. But will we go back to the Frozen Four again or year after year in less interesting cities if our team isn't in it, buying balcony tickets from Ticketmaster or a 3rd party scalper? It seems unlikely, but that may be more about the (one team) fans that we are. I did enjoy that DU-UMD final, though!
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