NCAA Hockey Administrators to western fans: Drop Dead

[UVM Cat in Texas]

Re: NCAA Hockey Administrators to western fans: Drop Dead

mookie's speed limit here is 80 (and mookie speeds )

Bad mookie!

[Jimjamesak]

1st round of NCAA women is on campus. The boards are scrubbed. But NCAA women's hockey stops at the Minnesota/North Dakota border.

DII volleyball and basketball are completely scrubbed as well.

[joecct]

Re: NCAA Hockey Administrators to western fans: Drop Dead

I vote in favor of Nashville hosting a Frozen Four. UAH can host.

Heck, EVERY NCAA hockey school can host.

[Split-N]

Re: NCAA Hockey Administrators to western fans: Drop Dead

I vote in favor of Nashville hosting a Frozen Four....

Ding Ding Ding!!! Sooner the better.

[ExileOnDaytonStreet]

Re: NCAA Hockey Administrators to western fans: Drop Dead

This thoroughly reasonably named thread (sigh) is as good a place as any to ask: when do we find out about next year’s regionals? Who’s hosting?

[J.D.]

This thoroughly reasonably named thread (sigh) is as good a place as any to ask: when do we find out about next year’s regionals? Who’s hosting?

Manchester
Providence
Worcester
Bridgeport

[amkirby10]

Manchester
Providence
Worcester
Bridgeport

Frozen Four moved last-minute from Detroit to Boston

[ExileOnDaytonStreet]

Frozen Four moved last-minute from Detroit to Boston

Still might be too long of a drive if UMass or Providence gets in.

[Numbers]

Re: NCAA Hockey Administrators to western fans: Drop Dead

There really isn't much more to say here. Western arenas and schools have little incentive to bid. Even NoDak only sports about a 1 in 4 chance to qualify again this year. I await the day that a change HAS to occur.

When it does, I hope the reasoning continues to go like this:
A 60+ team sport deserves a full 4 round tourney.

We (NCAA) will make more money with on campus sites than neutral sites.

And, then we will get some sort of arrangement like the one proposed by pgb-ohio. Conference champs plus the top 2 at large bids host round one. Thinking that through....
Who is in favor? Likely all WCHA and AHA teams, plus perhaps B10 teams, who will stand a great chance of hosting at some point, where they have no such chance now. As well as schools like SCSU, UMD and others who don't have an available rink to host, but might get an on campus game in this system.
Who would see a down-side? Any school who currently commonly ends up in the 9-15 range of the PWR, with a lot of fans who travel to regionals, who might end up playing at Mercyhurst or Robert Morris or some place. Really, there are few schools who are in this group. On the one hand, they might be the HEA schools, plus an ECAC team or two. But those schools might just as easily get to host a game themselves...

Round 1 rules:
No intraconference matchups. Since there would be the possibility of 5 teams from one conference qualify (we have never seen more than that), then we allow 1 school to move 2 PWR spots in the seeding, but all other schools can only be moved 1 spot (I'm getting rid of the bands, here. It's a straight seeding.)

Round 2:
2 Double headers the following weekend at predetermined sites, with predetermined bracketing.

Example:
Assume current high seeds win tourneys, and all PWR stays exactly as is:

Seeds:
1- SCSU; 2- UMass, 3- Mankato; 4- UMD
5- QU; 6- OSU; 7- Denver; 8- NE
9- Prov; 10-ASU; 11- Clarkson; 12- Cornell
13- WMU; 14- Harv; 15- Notre Dame; 16- AIC

Hosts:
SCSU, UMass, Mankato, UMD, QU, OSU, Denver, AIC
Games:
Notre Dame @ SCSU; Harvard @ UMass; WMU @ Mankato; Cornell @ UMD;
ASU @ QU, Clarkson @ OSU; Prov @ Denver; NorthEastern @ AIC

Bracket done with regionality involved:
SCSU game vs Denver game
Mankato game vs OSU game

UMass game vs AIC game
UMD game vs QU Game

You could argue the matchups that SCSU should get AIC, and I wouldn't fight you. But that's actually a Western Regional. It needs to have Western teams.
The only thing not coming out 'good' is that the 2 at large hosts are both from the NCHC, so it's harder to balance the 2 double headers.
Those double headers would be Saturday/Sunday on the 2nd weekend, so there would be lots of time to book flights for the fans. And, they could research ahead of time the area to which they MIGHT be traveling.

I know this is a knock off of what pgb-ohio already posted, but I like it a lot.

[ExileOnDaytonStreet]

Re: NCAA Hockey Administrators to western fans: Drop Dead

So… 4000 fans is considered a failure for regional attendance, loosely speaking. That’s happened in 16/120 regional games in the past 10 tournaments.

Your solution to this is on-campus rinks, of which only about 1/3 of all D-I schools can manage for average attendance? And you’ll put 8 games a year in these spots, and only a few of those games will have much advance notice and won’t necess have the NCAA branding set up ahead of time and have the NCAA’s requirements for lodging and other logistics set up ahead of time?

And you’re serious?

[davyd83]

I vote in favor of Nashville hosting a Frozen Four. UAH can host.

Heck, EVERY NCAA hockey school can host.

Nashville, Vegas & another Tampa!

[davyd83]

Go all out, host it in Vegas. Block off the upper decks, could entice UNLV to go DI. Local youth teams are really starting to ramp up now.

UNLV isn’t going D-1 unless a Pegula steps up. Their athletic department finances couldn’t handle adding more sports.

[davyd83]

And this is somehow the fault of "NCAA Hockey Administrators"?

It’s a lot easier to “travel” in the east where 3 hours one way is considered a “long trip!” Here are travel times for Northern Michigan: Mich Tech 2 hrs, LSSU 3, Ferris 6, Bemidji 7 1/2, Bowling Green & Mankato 8 1/2-9, UAF, UAA & UAH are all flights. Non-conf this year: Mich St 7, Notre Dame 9, St Cloud 8.

[bravohankins]

Re: NCAA Hockey Administrators to western fans: Drop Dead

On campus NCAA's are a lot of fun. I remember fantastic NCAA games at Bowling Green over the years against Colorado College and Vermont, well fantastic for BG anyway. I can also remember very good BG teams going to Maine and BC and getting run out of the barn.

.......and that's why campus sites will never happen again. It's just too big of an advantage for the home teams. The coaches will never go for on campus again because lower seeded teams have almost no shot of advancing, very few ever did. Look how many times Michigan used home ice to get to the Frozen Four.

In the current setup the lower seeded teams have a fighters chance to advance....play well, get a hot goalie and you can beat the #1 seed in a one off scenario. Way tougher on their home ice.

[pgb-ohio]

Re: NCAA Hockey Administrators to western fans: Drop Dead

So… 4000 fans is considered a failure for regional attendance, loosely speaking. That’s happened in 16/120 regional games in the past 10 tournaments.

Your solution to this is on-campus rinks, of which only about 1/3 of all D-I schools can manage for average attendance? And you’ll put 8 games a year in these spots, and only a few of those games will have much advance notice and won’t necess have the NCAA branding set up ahead of time and have the NCAA’s requirements for lodging and other logistics set up ahead of time?

And you’re serious?

Sure he is. And so was I.

Replies:

1. 4000 fans in an NHL sized venue is poor crowd. 4000 in a 10,000 seat building is mediocre. 4000 fans in a 4000 seat venue can be a great crowd.

2. OK, 8 first round games at campus sites might cause some loss of revenue. Maybe. But if so, it's at the margins. The Frozen Four is the breadwinner, whatever the regional format. I also have to believe that having the first round on campus would reduce costs in terms of travel, hotels & facility overhead.

3. Lack of seating capacity on campus? You seem to ignore the obvious fact you'd be working with 8 buildings rather than 4. I'll buy that the AHL buildings currently in use are twice as big as many campus arenas. But if you added up the chairs in 8 smaller buildings, I'll bet the total would be quite similar to the sum of the chairs in 4 AHL buildings. And even if the AHL total is slightly higher, how is that an advantage? The current reality is that the surplus chairs will just sit empty, even at the so-called "successful" regionals.

4. Lodging & Logistics are an argument against? Seriously? It's much easier to host one traveling team than the four required by the current set-up. And if Mr. MacInnes shows up to chat, he'll acknowledge that my format avoids a lot of locker room logistical problems caused by multi-team tournaments.

5. Lead time is a legitimate issue. But if the biggest concern is less branding/commercialism in the first round, I find myself almost wishing for that result.


One more point; this one isn't a direct reply. But I feel compelled to remind you that the Midwestern & Western Regionals have been mostly failures at the gate for many years. Recently they've been a little better due to:

1. The Success of the Dakota Regionals; and
2 Pretending that Eastern Pennsylvania is part of the Midwest.

While I applaud the results achieved at those sites, I certainly don't think we've found a permanent solution with these locations.