Harvard 6 Cornell 1 ECAC post-game & site critique

[Jim Hyla]

Maybe Albany could offer a buyout to AC to start a year early?

Don't hold your breath waiting for that. There seems to be a lot of hope here that maybe the ECAC Tournament will not be held in AC next year. While it's always a possibility that the venue will change, I've seen nothing to indicate it might. The ECAC and Boardwalk Hall signed a contract and it would probably be very difficult for one side to back out unless it was mutual. Even if the ECAC wants out, my guess is Boardwalk Hall doesn't. 7,000 people is better than none, and it would probably be difficult for the venue to schedule another event for that weekend that would pull in more people than college hockey. By looking at Boardwalk Hall's calender of events, it seems to be empty most days. In fact, in the month of June, there's only one event scheduled to be held there. No way they want to let an event walk away. I think it's time to accept that Atlantic City will be the site for one more year.

Well...  it's not really as simple as "an event is better than no event".  We know that AC was able to land the tournament because they offered the ECAC the most guaranteed money.  In addition to that expense, they have to pay their ticket-takers and their ushers and their concession vendors, and pay for the lights and the refrigeration and all that other stuff.  Plus they have to advertise.  With those costs, there's got to be some number of tickets below which they're losing money by hosting the event, and if the attendance was below that level then they'd be better off just not having an event that weekend.  

Of course, you're right to point out that we haven't heard anything that suggests that their revenue actually WAS below that point, or that AC might actually BE considering trying to back out of the agreement on that basis (which, we would guess, the ECAC might go for, on account of all the bad press they've gotten); we're ally all just hopefully speculating.

When I was at Union/RPI away games, I was told by someone close to the Times-Union Center (You know, we were both leaning on the wall, very close.) that AC had lost money in 2011, and that they can get out of their contract if this year was also bad. So here's hoping.

[ugarte]

Atlantic City, Lake Placid, Bridgeport, and Providence are also expected to submit bids.

The article says:

Besides the TU Center, which hosted the tournament from 2003-10, and Atlantic City, the ECACH could hear bids from Bridgeport, Conn., Lake Placid and Providence, R.I.

I think even the passive-voiced "are also expected to submit bids" is probably too strong a wording of what Ken Schott actually wrote.

Ken Schott seems to expect them to submit bids even if Hagwell might not. Technically speaking, the ECAC could hear a bid from Honolulu too, but Schott didn't include that because he doesn't expect Honolulu to submit a bid.

While Schott may expect bids from those sites, it's not what the article says. The article reads as pure speculation, which is why saying that these sites are "expected" to bid is too strong.

Fine. I give up. I'm not arguing over such minor semantics. I was wrong to use a word as strong as "expected."

Are you interested in journalism for real? Because accurately representing source documents is supposed to be part of the job.

[billhoward]

Atlantic City, Lake Placid, Bridgeport, and Providence are also expected to submit bids.

The article says:

Besides the TU Center, which hosted the tournament from 2003-10, and Atlantic City, the ECACH could hear bids from Bridgeport, Conn., Lake Placid and Providence, R.I.

I think even the passive-voiced "are also expected to submit bids" is probably too strong a wording of what Ken Schott actually wrote.

Ken Schott seems to expect them to submit bids even if Hagwell might not. Technically speaking, the ECAC could hear a bid from Honolulu too, but Schott didn't include that because he doesn't expect Honolulu to submit a bid.

While Schott may expect bids from those sites, it's not what the article says. The article reads as pure speculation, which is why saying that these sites are "expected" to bid is too strong.

Fine. I give up. I'm not arguing over such minor semantics. I was wrong to use a word as strong as "expected."

Are you interested in journalism for real? Because accurately representing source documents is supposed to be part of the job.

Good thing you qualified with "supposed to."