rob f

November 18th, 2014 at 7:03 AM ^

but not time to read the linked story, as I have to give myself some extra commuting time today:  Is it costing that much to undo the previous renovations and return it to being as much fun as before? 

casmooth

November 18th, 2014 at 7:15 AM ^

They ought to put the student seating back along the glass along the entire south side of the rink as it used to be. They took all of that away in the last round of renovations, and for what, a few photographers? In return, there is now room for only a handful of students along the glass, which makes the historically most rambunctious part of the student section further away from the away bench and playing surface. I don't mind the improvements along the concourse and to the scoreboard, but everything else they did took away from Yost being unique and special. I mean, a goal horn? I never thought I'd see the day...

gwkrlghl

November 18th, 2014 at 7:26 AM ^

Well the students have always been on the east side and I'm pretty certain they're off the glass now because the last round of renovations brought along the requirements of the ADA and they needed more handicap seating right in front.

I wish they hadn't renovated it at all personally

Alton

November 18th, 2014 at 7:40 AM ^

This seems to be entirely about the quality of the ice & the boards, plus a little fix to the roof on the north side.  So no un-doing of everything they did to ruin the arena 3 years ago.

I would have shouted down anybody who would have suggested this 10 years ago, but at what point do they just find some donors and build a new arena?  Yes, I would hate to lose a place as historical as Yost, but in many ways we have already lost it.

Naked Bootlegger

November 18th, 2014 at 8:14 AM ^

Yost is space-challenged, so we have to think way outside the box.   How about club-level plexiglass pods hanging directly over the ice?   These pods, of course, will be mounted on tracks so you can follow the puck up and down the ice.    Human body waste will be flash-frozen and ejected via high pressure flush toilets (a la passenger jets).   Zambonis will be retrofitted to clean up said human waste, or waste can be floated down to the visitors penalty box.   Privacy option will allow glass to be tinted so you can make mad, sweet love from the rafters of Yost Ice Arena.   

jblaze

November 18th, 2014 at 11:35 AM ^

However, the answer is likely no, it wouldn't be cheaper to build a new arena. This wikipedia page gives the cost of some recent minor league hockey stadiums and they are all well above $5 million (even though the University in theory owns land and could reuse some components of Yost).

Blue Bennie

November 18th, 2014 at 9:35 AM ^

I keep reading that Yost was ruined when it went through the renovation.

A little background: I've been going to Yost since the late 80's.  I had season tickets all five years as a student, always played intermural hockey, and went to games after graduation.  the last 10 years, however, I have lived a couple hundred miles away, and have only been to a couple of games.

One thing has not changed in 27 years.  There is no place I would rather watch college hockey.

Has it really gotten that bad for the rest of you?

ak47

November 18th, 2014 at 1:23 PM ^

How exactly do you neuter an arena?  Yost was loud because of its shape and tight confines.  They didn't change the structrure of the building and being a few rows back shouldn't make the students less loud in a space like that. The atmosphere sucsk now because the fans are not as into it because the team sucks.  That is the way spors works.  In the early 2000's comcast center (maryland basketball) was one of the loudest and hardest places to play in the country, now it is just another arena and the only difference is the team sucks now. That is how it works in sports, if you are bad for multiple years in a row that fans stop being as lound and crazy.

ak47

November 18th, 2014 at 4:42 PM ^

Honest answer I went to about 3-4 games a year as a student from 2009-2013,  I could only afford season tickets for football and basketball so I mostly just picked up extra free seats from friends with season tickets.  I was there pre and post renovation and while I think some things can impact atmosphere like the goal horn being annoying as shit the biggest difference to me was way less students and other fans were showing up, not where they were sitting.  When the game was close and Michigan played well the place got as loud as it did in my first 3 years there and when they got blown out by a shit team on Friday night it sucked and the team has done a lot more of the latter over the past 3 years.

It is a matter of opinion whether a place has lost its 'feel'.  I don't agree that if felt that different the first time I walked in.  Just like the renovation to crisler didn't make it louder, the team playing better did the hockey renovations didn't make yost quiter, the team playing shitty did.  

Bando Calrissian

November 18th, 2014 at 5:11 PM ^

Pardon me if I think someone who has gone to a handful of games since 2009 doesn't have a lot of perspective here. As someone who has been going to games at Yost since (I think) 1994, I can tell you, having been through all of the stages of Yost as a hockey rink (it wasn't all that much different from the 70s before the big renovation in the 90s), the difference is staggering. It's not just about people and where they're sitting. It's a completely different rink, in a bad way, than what it was even ten years ago. It's not about being louder or quieter as just being a generally less fun and interesting place to see a game. Yost could be half-empty back in the day (and it seldom was) and still feel completely and authentically like Yost.

HELLE

November 18th, 2014 at 12:01 PM ^

If hockey won the last three national championships, no one would talk about the arena. If football won the last three national championships, David Brandon would be our Athletic Director. People like to find additional reasons to complain when they are unhappy.

gwkrlghl

November 18th, 2014 at 11:58 AM ^

  • Better lit - which makes it surprisingly different
  • GOAL HORN
  • Metal bleachers (instead of the old wooden ones)
  • Renovations brought ADA requirements -> students up off the glass now
  • Seems to be be rock music in there now where there wasn't any before

I think the lighting really makes a big impact. It doesn't feel like our dank hole in the wall arena anymore. It just feels like another OHL rink. Bright lights, music, ads, GOAL HORNNNNN, etc. It's lost a lot of its charm that was there just 5ish years ago

Team 101

November 18th, 2014 at 11:37 AM ^

It was definitely better before the last renovation.  I like the lights and the windows but the seating is much worse and the removal of the seating against the boards and the aluminum seats are mostly to blame.  The could have accommodated the ADA requirements in other ways if they had wanted to.

Team 101

November 18th, 2014 at 11:37 AM ^

It was definitely better before the last renovation.  I like the lights and the windows but the seating is much worse and the removal of the seating against the boards and the aluminum seats are mostly to blame.  The could have accommodated the ADA requirements in other ways if they had wanted to.

UMxWolverines

November 18th, 2014 at 1:18 PM ^

Maybe its because the team hasn't been very good but I think the atmosphere has been totally sucked out of Yost since the renovation.

This is gonna sound similar to complaints about football, but everywhere I sit it seems I'm around a bunch of zombies.

Bando Calrissian

November 18th, 2014 at 2:02 PM ^

I think the difference that makes the comparison with football so silly is that Yost as a physical building and incubator for sheer insanity is arguably a much bigger portion of the Michigan Hockey experience than the stadium is for football. What we've seen at Yost is a renovation that took a lot of the character out of the building (beyond a few elements, such as the windows, that are actually pretty cool), which neutered the already-flagging student section (which has been going steadily downhill since these "Children of Yost" people anointed themselves as a thing, at the expense of the organic unity that was the old Yost student section), and was paired with some in-game additions that outshone the few things that we all took for granted. And don't forget that Athletics neutering the Dekers Club took a lot of the family aspect away, too.

I mean, when a goal horn drowns out the Victors, every single damn thing has a corporate sponsor, a jumbotron lights up the place like a Christmas tree, and bright lights turn it into a glaring and awful mess...

Yost had so much character that developed over decades of good and bad hockey. They managed to make it three renovations without ruining that character. Now, I go in there, and it just doesn't feel like Yost anymore. What was always so great about Yost, and the hockey program in general, was that it felt insulated from what was going on around it. Yes, it benefited from football and basketball, but at the same time, it cultivated a fanbase that was an interesting and rabidly loyal subset of the general population. The hockey fanbase wasn't like the rest. And Yost's intimacy and atmosphere was a large part of that. It's gone now.

Bando Calrissian

November 18th, 2014 at 2:15 PM ^

It's not gone, but the Athletic Department under DB made a concerted effort to cut ties with the outsider fan groups (Dekers, Blue Aces, whatever the softball one is, IIRC). The Dekers don't have ads in the arena anymore, a lot of their former responsibilities for the program have been curtailed, the 50/50 raffle is gone... In other words, the Dekers aren't what they used to be, and it isn't for lack of interest or organization.

MGoBender

November 18th, 2014 at 2:02 PM ^

 

The athletic department has proposed projects that will upgrade the arena's ice rink floor, dasher board systems, and refrigeration system, as well as replace the flat roof on the building's north side.

The scope of this project includes the architectural, electrical, and mechanical work necessary to accomplish these improvements.

Athletic department resources will provide funding, the proposal stated, and, if approved, the project would be completed by summer 2015.

 

 

In case you don't want to or can't click the link for some reason.