Hockey East Tourney on the Move

[JB]

Re: Hockey East Tourney on the Move

I am 100% against moving it from the Garden.

Question: isn't it a road game for everybody? I was under the impression all teams stayed at the same hotel.

There aren't any real advantages for the Boston schools, any that people bring up are really just whining. The Boston schools win more often because 1) they traditionally have good teams and 2) they typically are plying their best hockey down the stretch. If UNH would pull their heads out of their butts in big games the numbers would be more even. Look at the general league history top 4 teams in the majority of years have been BC, BU, and Maine with UNH joining the party more often than anybody else. If UNH would pull their weight the numbers would be better balanced.

If you were to look at moving I can only think of 4 facilities that might be able to host in the right geographic area: Providence Civic Center, Manchester Verizon, DCU Worchester, and Cumberland County Civic. I see the Providence and Portland sites to be out on the edge of the league. That leaves Manchester (should be too small) and Worchester (dump), there aren't any other even good locations.

[CHFAN222]

Re: Hockey East Tourney on the Move

@cat lover

The location of the tournament is not about being fair. It is about giving something to talk to recruits about and making money for the league. A recruit isn't going to be impressed if he visits a school and hears they play their championship game in Manchester. Also who care if the Boston schools bring more fans. More fans = more money which means more money for the schools in HE which means they can field better teams. So do you believe they should move WCHA out of Minneapolis because it gives Minnesota an unfair advantage even though it brings in a ton of cash to the other schools?

[jjmc85]

Re: Hockey East Tourney on the Move

What exactly is gained by this? The Bruins own the Garden and are part owners of NESN. In additions to being less convenient for most fans and schools, moving could upset the people in charge of the TV broadcasts.

[Nick Papagiorgio]

Re: Hockey East Tourney on the Move

1. Home Ice

All 3 Boston schools get to play the 2 games at the Beanpot during the second half of the season which no one can say is not an advantage. Most of the upperclassmen on those teams probably already played there 2 to 4 times a year while other teams coming in might have most or all of their roster not having never played there.

First, this advantage is minimal for a hockey player and I think you're glorifying this for your argument.

Second, this is diminished even further when you consider the fact that this is really only an issue for freshmen at a school like BC (where they play in Piszpots, HE tourneys, and Frozen Fours almost annually, and even get in the rare trip to Fenway Park) and BU (Frozen Four rarely, but HE semis and Piszpots annually). At other schools, this is only an issue for freshmen and any other player in the program that has never played in a HE semi before. Given that Maine, UNH, UVM get to the Garden fairly regularly... there's not a ton of hockey players this would apply to. And again, it's a minimal advantage if any.

2.Home Fans

While saying BC and BU make up a ton of the crowd when all they have to do is hop on a train for 15 minutes is true but really if UNH, Maine or Vermont were that close to the rink you would sell out much more often.

If you had the same distance to every school to the game site you would see a much different make up in the stands. Vermont and Maine would have had the most last year, heck Maine was very represented last year and Vermont
had a good showing despite having both BBall teams playing the NCAA's the same weekend. If you could move Vermont to Orono and build a rink you
would not even need 2 other teams to sell it out.

Think of this BU holds 6150 and BC 7884 when they sellout which they do, but the total attendance to the semis last year was 12544. And thats with
the Maine and Vermont fans included.

Fan support is another terribly overrated "advantage" but that's just my opinion. Other people think it wins games. Regardless, you need to consider that even with fewer fans than say BC, if you're playing them, you're going to have all the limp-wristed facepainters from BU screaming for UVM at the top of their lungs (and probably both fanbases of hillbillies from the north as well). If you're playing BU, you'll get some of the BC fans rooting for you along with everyone that dislikes the Taliban, Iraq, and every other evil entity in the world. And so on and so forth. Probably not much of an advantage as neutral observers will cling to an underdog to offset the larger numbers of the larger, favored programs plus the multiple fan bases that would root against those larger, favored program.

3. Home

Anyone who has ever traveled for sports knows one of the biggest advantages a team gets at home is sleeping in there own bed and being able to stick to the usual routine. Anyone who ever had a bad night sleep at a hotel knows this, and add the pressure of a big game to that.

Many NFL coaches get their team in hotels the night before home games to allow them to focus and avoid distractions (and put a curfew in place) that they would have at home. And there's a reason for this. Even college coaches do this. I guess they don't know what they're doing...

I think at best, there is no advantage to staying at home as the risks/disadvantages offset any advantage. It might come into play if a team were not staying in Boston Thursday night but I assume they would travel on Thursday at the latest so that would not be an issue.

[Nick Papagiorgio]

Re: Hockey East Tourney on the Move

and UVM has done well in recent years too.

Hasn't UVM only won one semifinal there (against a horrible BU team)?

[J.D.]

Re: Hockey East Tourney on the Move

Hasn't UVM only won one semifinal there (against a horrible BU team)?

For some reason, I thought they had advanced to the Garden three straight years. I think what I was getting at is even in their brief HE history, they've been in the title game once.

Question for UNH, UVM, Maine: Do they stay in Boston Thursday night? If so, even less of an "advantage" for the Boston schools.

[Still Crazy in section 17]

Re: Hockey East Tourney on the Move

Boston is also the media center of New England. Any other venue would be a step down in visibility.

Frankly, I liked the early 1990s when both the ECAC and Hockey East held their tourneys at Boston Garden over the same weekend. There was a lot of hockey to digest...

Swami...right on the mark! Those were the golden days when the HEA was just a few years from its separation from the ECAC. Great hockey and great fun! And throw in the Boston experience...but the ECAC is now in bed with Atlantic City and one will have to wait to see how that works out, as if that would really matter.

I understand the positions of those from non-Boston area schools but the financial of having a large venue nearly filled with the media exposure makes this point moot. When your team makes it to the semi's...it's the BIG TIME baby!

[Cat lover]

Re: Hockey East Tourney on the Move

First, this advantage is minimal for a hockey player and I think you're glorifying this for your argument.

Second, this is diminished even further when you consider the fact that this is really only an issue for freshmen at a school like BC (where they play in Piszpots, HE tourneys, and Frozen Fours almost annually, and even get in the rare trip to Fenway Park) and BU (Frozen Four rarely, but HE semis and Piszpots annually). At other schools, this is only an issue for freshmen and any other player in the program that has never played in a HE semi before. Given that Maine, UNH, UVM get to the Garden fairly regularly... there's not a ton of hockey players this would apply to. And again, it's a minimal advantage if any.

How many games had all the Lowell players played when they made the Garden 2 years ago?

My quess less combined than every freshman on BC. And the upper classmen at BC/BU etc would all have had about a dozen by then.

You cant say having played more in a big stage like that is not an advantage.

[slurpees]

Re: Hockey East Tourney on the Move

How many games had all the Lowell players played when they made the Garden 2 years ago?

My quess less combined than every freshman on BC. And the upper classmen at BC/BU etc would all have had about a dozen by then.

You cant say having played more in a big stage like that is not an advantage.

So you penalize the top performing teams in the conference, two of whom are nearby, the other two (historically) are not because teams like Lowell haven't played well enough that often to make it to the Garden, so on the off chance that they do, it can be fair for them? If you move it to Manchester or anywhere else, the same argument will apply if Lowell only makes it once every 5-10 years and the powerhouse schools make it just about every year. Just because a program hasn't been performing well enough to make it to the "big stage", doesn't mean everyone else should bend over backwards so that the one time that little guy makes it, they're not playing in the same place the big guys have played before, that's the nature of the underdog. The only way to eradicate this problem as you're describing it, and make it fair according to your definition would be to host this thing at some high school rink in Connecticut.

[J.D.]

Re: Hockey East Tourney on the Move

You cant say having played more in a big stage like that is not an advantage.

UNH is almost always at the Garden for the semifinals...I think the program is used to that big stage, no? If you want to argue that BC players have an advantage because they played at the Garden in the Beanpot...fine. Do you then think the CCHA tourney shouldn't be at JLA because Michigan and Michigan State get to play in the GLI?

[Nick Papagiorgio]

Re: Hockey East Tourney on the Move

How many games had all the Lowell players played when they made the Garden 2 years ago?

There's a reason I didn't list UML in there. Regardless of whether an advantage or not (let's be honest, it's probably a small advantage), I think it's still highly overrated.

What's highly underrated is the focus these guys exhibit, which takes away a lot of the disadvantage of never playing in a big building before. The game is played between the glass and that's what these guys are focused on (incredibly focused, I might add).

Also note in my above post, I really should not have even mentioned BU and BC freshmen because as you had noted, they will have already been there before because of the Piszpot.

In the end, I think the whole nature of your post was silly... no offense.

[SteveF]

Re: Hockey East Tourney on the Move

i propose a play until vermont wins structure where the two teams meet each night at a different venue until vermont is the winner. when that occurs, all following years' games will be played at that location until the unlikely event that vermont loses and then the location will change again the following night.

the league will also reserve the right to extend or shorten the game time, at any point and at their sole discretion, if the outcome of a game is ever seriously in doubt.

further, in the event of a losing streak of 5 or more, teams that 'traditionally perform well on big stages' may receive a permanent man power disadvantage for the remainder of the series. the disadvantage may be 1 or 2 players (including a goalie) and will be decided by a majority vote of the two teams that missed the playoffs and vermont.

[amherstblackbear]

Re: Hockey East Tourney on the Move

Obviously, we should construct a Euclidean distance model to determine the true center of Hockey East, at which spot we should build an 18k seat arena, along the lines of the Xcel Energy Center. We should then do everything in our power to develop a world class city around said arena, at which point we should immediately and permanently relocate the Hockey East tournament.

OR we could just leave the d@mn thing in Boston.

Whichever.

[The Freds]

Re: Hockey East Tourney on the Move

Given the hits the Providence College AD has taken over the past several months due to the stupid actions of his basketball players, I suspect this article was nothing more than his spin to appease whatever remaining season ticket holders he has on the bouncyball side. I'm sure he hopes the lure of an NCAA bouncyball tourney can make the fans forget the lousy program he is running.

The hockey aspect of the article is likely mere fill. PC, which has successfully handled NCAA and HEA tourneys in the past absolutetly mishandled the last NCAA hockey tourney there and it seemed there was no appetite around that program to do it again.

I suspect this is much ado about nothing.

All that being said, Providence, the city, does thow a great party for whatever tournament is in town.

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: Hockey East Tourney on the Move

Moving the Hockey East tournament away from Boston is about as good of an idea as moving the ECAC tournament to Atlantic City.