NCAA Hockey Administrators to Fans: Drop Dead
The NCAA released its championship sites for the next few years. There are a lot of Michigan-related sites here, including a Frozen Four in Detroit.
But I'm a college hockey fan and I was interested to see if they would change the format of the college hockey regional system.
Not only has it not changed, they've made it worse.
Sioux Falls gets 2018 regional. Fargo gets 2019 regional. UND will host both.
— Brad E. Schlossman (@SchlossmanGF) April 18, 2017
2018 NCAA regionals: Sioux Falls, Bridgeport, Worcester, Allentown. 2019 regionals: Fargo, Manchester, Providence, Allentown.
— Brad E. Schlossman (@SchlossmanGF) April 18, 2017
The "Western" regionals consist of two regionals hosted by North Dakota, and... Allentown?
That's right, if you're a fan of a team west of Niagara Falls that isn't North Dakota, you've just been given the shaft. Unless you want to drive for hours to the East Coast, you don't get to see your team play NCAA tournament games.
I guess we could just decide that the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament are a joke, so we don't feel bad about it. Is that what the NCAA hockey committee wants? Because that's the vibe we're getting. Dedicated fanbases in any number of schools in Minnesota and Michigan, jilted. The Chicago corridor teams, shafted. Have an all-time season at a place like Omaha or Huntsville? Sorry, you can see the games on WatchESPN.
It's the worst playoff in sports, and they just made it worse. Go to home sites for the first two rounds. Get rid of this garbage.
From the title, I thought you were talking about the Broncos and I wondered if they were applying for B1G membership
I could see where you would get that. Edited the title a bit, in this case more vague might be more appropriate.
They are in the midst of fixing the committee thing though....
What's sad about this is that there is an actual committee that's made up of hockey people that makes these decisions, and they're making the wrong decisions.
The reason North Dakota is getting these regionals is clearly that there are no other bids. Allentown would not be getting a pair of "midwest" regionals if there was a plausible bid for Toledo or Grand Rapids or Green Bay or something.
But the reason there are no other bids is that the regional format is a total disaster, and they're not bothering to fix that, and the sport's postseason is, consequently, a joke. It doesn't reflect well on the sport as a whole.
Serious question..what is the closest college team to Allentown, PA? PSU? and???
but Allentown is obviously banking (literally banking in terms of making a profit) on a PSU appearence in at least 1 of the 2 years. It's several hours from any other schools who have a fairly large hockey fan-base.
Good plan! Maybe the NCAA will put a Frozen Four in London (England!) or Mexico City like the NCAA. That will really expand their fan base
/s
Is it a chicken or egg issue at some level?
The problem might be self-perpetuating. Larger venues/cities are not actively pursuing regionals because they see the pathetic crowds, and who wants to be associated with that nonsense (especially if you lose money or merely break even in the process). So they have them in consecutive years in freakin' Allentown, which won't exactly be flooded with people for the match-up.
And the larger venues/cities see that the crowds are still small (maybe even smaller), so they have even less interest.
Lather, Rinse, Repeat.
Yup and it certainly doesn't help that morons like Jim Delany crapped all over NCAA hockey by destroying a really good CCHA to form the terrible B1G hockey conf. Thanks Jim....dickhead.
Move to home sites. It immediately solves the atrocious attendance at regionals, boosts the TV appeal, and reduces some of the utter randomness of one-and-done hockey / rewards the 1 seeds
Literally, if you go to home site regionals, your % capacity goes from 5% to 100% in one season. Those are all going to sell out
It's not really a chicken or egg issue. There is a clear start here, and it's the NCAA's decions to move to away from home arenas for regionals. College hockey doesn't have enough fan support to fill arenas several hours away from any of the teams attending, so the only way the "neutral" arenas make money is if a local team is in attendance. They can get away with it in the east, where there are lots of teams in a small area and any regional site will be bound to host at least a couple teams within a short drive. But out west, most of the "neutral" sites only have one or two teams within a short drive, so the entire attendance is dependent on the local team making the tourney.
Since regional sites are given out years in advance, it's a giant bet that the local team will be good a few years down the line. Outside of North Dakota, there haven't been many teams worth betting on the past few years, which is how multiple sites ended up getting burned. Now the number of arenas that want to take that bet is very low.
It makes me wonder if the poor attendance will almost end up forcing the NCAA to go back to home sites. When your only bid for a 'west' regional is Allentown PA, you know there are essentially no bidders. If it gets worse, you almost wonder if the NCAA will be forced to go to home sites just so they have somewhere to play.
There aren't a ton of arenas that are medium enough to be large enough but also not NHL sizes where it's 10% full. Not a ton of 5,000-10,000 cap arenas out there willing to roll the dice on losing a ton of money
April 18th, 2017 at 10:43 PM ^
Good point and i should add, i really don't see why it should be entirely up to the coaches either. Especially if the coaches have equal input, even from conferences where 1/10 teams qualify. Sounds a lot like FIFA level ineptitude / corruption
I find it facinating that the NCAA can seemingly operate without the faintest whiff of accountability for poor decision-making year after year afer year year. The same idiots who screwed up the formatting in the first place are still in charge, still making decisions and the fact that they can look at "crowds" such as this and not feel they've made a terrible mistake is mind-boggling to me.
Ah, the Resch center. I actually made the four-hour drive and paid for four tickets to take my family there for the Michigan-Cornell game (Shawn Hunwick's last, as it turns out). I mean, it wasn't terrible, but without Wisconsin showing up there was no way that was going to have fans. Michigan managed to bring about 1000, I think? Not bad for a location six-plus hours from Ann Arbor.
Also the closest a regional ever got to Michigan Tech, the host. The system is absolutely garbage to schools like that.
whats a North Dakota?
These choices would indicate the answer is "no." The NCAA may be catering to North Dakota here, but neither can they put a regional in a city that doesn't want one.
Cincinnati/Miami University probably would have bid again (they hosted 3 of the last 4 years) if Miami was better. Miami folk even said that getting home ice in the regionals was a primary reason for their bid in the first place.
Nothing at all geographically between Allentown, PA and the Dakotas definitely stinks for the majority of the B1G, CCHA and WCHA.
Probably not, no.
Fargo/Sioux Falls and Allentown were the only "western" bids submitted.
Toledo once had a new arena and were looking to fill dates with anything so they got an NCAA hockey regional and they absolutely lost their ass on the deal. They'll never bid again. Now it's Allentown's turn with their new arena.
When these places bid for the event, I'm guessing they are banking on a big chunk of their revenue coming from concession sales, parking and probably a cut of the ticket sales. When ticket sales and attendance are awful, they are left grabbing their ankles.
"Turning the lights on" isn't cheap when you consider all the costs of arena set-up and staffing/running a game day operation. Plus, there are like a billion little requirements the NCAA expects a venue to do, and of course, the venue assumes all those costs.
It adds up pretty quick, and when you only have maybe 500 people there like Toledo did, you don't make it back.
Nope. If there was money being made, this would not be an issue.
April 18th, 2017 at 10:02 PM ^
That's... not a great deal.
April 19th, 2017 at 10:58 AM ^
For anybody who wants to read the "who pays for what" details, the NCAA still has the regional bid instruction PDF up on their website:
http://www.ncaa.org/sites/default/files/DI%20IH%20Regional%20Bid%20Spec…
The actual details are on page 21:
(1) The NCAA gets $150,000 from the host.
(2) The host gets paid for everything they provide (which is pretty much everything other than equipment plus travel & lodging for the teams and refs)--"budgeted expenses or actual expenses, whichever is less."
(3) The remainder of the receipts are split 80/20.
April 18th, 2017 at 10:21 PM ^
April 19th, 2017 at 12:27 PM ^
"Fargo/Sioux Falls and Allentown were the only 'western' bids submitted."
According to this article, your statement is not true. http://www.grandforksherald.com/sports/und-hockey/4253149-number-region…
According to North Dakota athletic director Brian Faison, who is a member of the committee, that's not the case: "Faison, who is required to leave the room when UND's bids are discussed among the Committee, said that some home facilities did submit bids this time, but they weren't considered."
So (presumably) Yost did submit a bid. Or some other schools who qualify--minimum 5,000 seats & ADA seating & video board & 5 locker rooms--submitted bids. But they were not considered in favor of Allentown.
The only schools to get home regionals in the last 5 years have had representatives on the committee. Michigan does not, so no home regional.
Hey, what's wrong with Allentown? Some of us are living here in Allentown. AND they're closing all the factories down!
but what are they doing out in Bethlehem?
Oh, just killing time, standing in line...
all these schools are totally against home site regionals, but North Dakota keeps getting de facto home regionals.
#1 seeds should host regionals. No one wants to go to Bridgeport. At this point Bridgeport has got to be getting tired of the tournament since they've had something like 20 consecutive regionals
No complaints here. I saw my first live Michigan sporting event thanks to the regional being in Manchester. Saw them beat up home team UNH 4-0 if I remember. Al Montoya in between the pipes.
One of my best friends is a Notre Dame fan so we plan to travel out there for both games in 18' and 19'. Cannot wait.
Bubbenzweig
*drops to floor*
*waits*
*...*
As a native South Dakotan, I am enraged that a team from NORTH Dakota is poisoning the sweet, sweet nectar of a town known as Sioux Falls with its sponsorship of a Regional.
That is enough to make me lament this decision.
I think you mean you're flared up or sore or positive or ....
Yeah, but if U of M were to submit Ann Arbor as a prospective site, the NCAA would angrily burn Yost down in lieu of a rejection letter.
They love two things: empty arenas and giving North Dakota home games they don't deserve.
April 18th, 2017 at 10:22 PM ^
How in the world is this less unfair than when Yost hosted, and yet they won't let us host ever again it seems. Watching them play Boston this year as a 3 seed at "neutral site" with 98% wearing a Sioux (no, not Hawks) jersey was a joke
Single elimination hockey is the death knell of the sport for me, along with the near total lack of checking any more