Quinnipiac's new rink

[ugarte]

[quote Rich S]Keep in mind that the Clarkson and greater Potsdam community are both much smaller than their counterparts in Ithaca.  Plus the hockey fans in the surrounding area can opt for a game at Slu just ten miles down the road on virtually every night there's a game at Cheel.

Attendance and noise levels at Cheel are up since last year began so that bodes well for Tech as well as for your visit.[/quote]I'm pretty sure that Josh '99 was referring to Bright, not Cheel.

[Josh '99]

[quote RichH][quote Josh '99][quote RichH]Now I'm no architect, but there are some rinks, and Cheel is one of them, where the building seems to try to hide the crowd.  Bright [gives] me that feeling. [/quote]What crowd?[/quote]

You know...us.[/quote]I guess that explains why they want to hide the crowd.

(Yes, I mean Bright.)

[jtwcornell91]

[quote Rich S][quote Jeff Hopkins '82][quote Josh '99][quote Hillel Hoffmann]Cheel is not awesome. Cheel is the physical manifestation of a lack of respect for tradition, which is the last thing one should expect from Clarkson. "Antiseptic" doesn't capture the lameness of the place. Those vast, empty interior walls (and their pastel hospital-wallpaper-green color) make Cheel feel like an East German senior citizen rehab center.[/quote]There you go, now you're going to have RichS angry at you for comparing Cheel to East Germany, and JTW angry at you for comparing East Germany to Cheel.  ::panic::[/quote]

 but it has beautiful countryside and lots of historical sites
 :-P[/quote]

Like both Potsdam and Ithaca![/quote]

Park Sanssouci in Potsdam is indeed beautiful and historical, but I'm pretty sure Ithaca is in Greece, not East Germany.

[jtwcornell91]

[quote Cop at Lynah]I agree that the added locker rooms and such were very much needed, however to take a 3800 seat venue without a bad seat in the house and increase the seating to 4200 with many obstructed view seats doesn't make much sense.[/quote]

Are there any new obstructed seats aside from the ones behind the goals?  The box seats along the townie side seemed fine, and the view from C is as good as it ever was.

[jtwcornell91]

[quote KeithK]Just for the record, my reference to Cheel in post #6 was NOT to slam Clarkson.  I was just using Cheel (specifically as I remember from the mid to late 90's) as an example of what you often get when you build a new rink.[/quote]

A contemporary example is BU trading in Walter Brown for Harry Agganis.  HAA's biggest flaw in the one game I saw there was the piped in music and cheesy TV timeout games.  Paging Mark...

[Rich S]

What you get is a much-needed (in both the hockey sense and as a meeting place on the Hill campus), privately financed, multi-purpose, very versatile facility with top notch medical and workout rooms, etc.

If it lacks a bit of feel and atmosphere that a more than 50 year old, antiquated, expensive-to-maintain, and impossible/impractical to renovate or expand facility had, I can accept that given th etype of facility that had to be constructed.

Any Clarkson supporter who ever saw a game at Clarkson/Walker Arena loved it and misses the atmosphere of that old barn.  Just the fact that Coach Sauer wanted it razed is testament to its attractiveness.

But its time had passed and the Cheel Campus Center met the university's needs on several levels.  Having been very involved in the Alumni Board at the time, I attended the meetings when all of the issues were discussed.

No two schools have the same set of needs or resources or approaches to construction.  No two rinks will be the same.

Kudos to Clarkson for making improvements to Cheel since its opening.  You can hope that Lynah will be replaced, when the time comes by the "perfect" arena, but that rarely happens.

[ugarte]

[quote Rich S]
Any Clarkson supporter who ever saw a game at Clarkson/Walker Arena loved it and misses the atmosphere of that old barn.  Just the fact that Coach Sauer wanted it razed is testament to its attractiveness.[/quote]I'm not sure I get what you are trying to say here. Are you saying that the building was so ugly (I'm not trying to offend, I promise) that even though it was rich in history and full of good memories, Coach Sauer wanted it torn down?

[Rich S]

It wasn't ugly but it was chilly, despite the fact that heat had been put in after the '71 season, rather dark, small (1800 appprox), cramped so that the few rows of fans felt like they were on top of the players, a small ice surface and in short intimidating!

In '91, Sauer's team had just lost an NCAA series at Walker which represented the final games played at the old barn.  Obviously having been used to the more spacious and attractive western rinks (mostly) he was apparently very frustrated.  His complaint fell into the category of saying that playing tournament games at on-campus sites gives the home team an unfair advantage.

I think everyone here is familiar with that argument.

He clearly demonstrated that by hollering while standing in the parking lot afterwards that the "f'in place should be burned down."  Etc, etc...  May not be an exact quote but I heard the story from a few friends who were there and witnessed his tirade.  Not sure if he was aware that he had just coached in the final games ever.

I think earlier in this thread someone posted a link to a story about this.  I know that a few years back when Sauer was an ESPN analyst during the Final Four, someone brought this up to him.  It touched a sore nerve.

FYI, Tech was undefeated (with one tie) at home that year.  Drew can no doubt provide more details.   That was also Clarkson's last appearance at the Final Four.

Perhaps there's a message there.  We need to go back to playing at a refurbished Walker!!!!  :-)

[KeithK]

The shorter answer: Sauer was coachign Wisconsin, not Clarkson.  I can't think of a more ringing endorsement of a place than to have the opposing coach wish that it were burned down.

[KeithK]

[quote Rich S]Kudos to Clarkson for making improvements to Cheel since its opening.  You can hope that Lynah will be replaced, when the time comes by the "perfect" arena, but that rarely happens.[/quote]You're right - a replacement for Lynah would almost certainly not be the perfect arena.  That's why I want them to keep Lynah as long as possible - better to keep the great place that we do have than the uncertainty (and for me likely disappointment) of a new arena.

Edit for typos.

[ugarte]

[quote KeithK][quote Rich S]Kudos to Clarkson for making improvements to Cheel since its opening.  You can hope that Lynah will be replaced, when the time comes by the "perfect" arena, but that rarely happens.[/quote]You're right - a replacement for Lynah would almost certainly not be the perfect arena.  That's why I want them to keep Lynah as long as possible - better to keep the great place that we do have than the uncertainty 9and for me likely disappointment) of a new arena.[/quote]What if they replaced Lynah with a new arena ... but put it in Lake Placid.

[Liz '05]

[quote ugarte][quote KeithK][quote Rich S]Kudos to Clarkson for making improvements to Cheel since its opening.  You can hope that Lynah will be replaced, when the time comes by the "perfect" arena, but that rarely happens.[/quote]You're right - a replacement for Lynah would almost certainly not be the perfect arena.  That's why I want them to keep Lynah as long as possible - better to keep the great place that we do have than the uncertainty 9and for me likely disappointment) of a new arena.[/quote]What if they replaced Lynah with a new arena ... but put it in Lake Placid.[/quote]

Is this Lake Placid you speak of in/near the Plantations?  Why can't we just keep sports near the main campus?  (And why would we put a rink IN a lake?)

[Josh '99]

[quote Rich S]What you get is a much-needed (in both the hockey sense and as a meeting place on the Hill campus), privately financed, multi-purpose, very versatile facility with top notch medical and workout rooms, etc.[/quote]It's all well and good that Cheel is privately financed, and centrally located, and a multi-purpose facility (what with being located in, or maybe it's technically adjoining, the student union), and has good medical and workout facilities.  Those are all, I'd say, positive attributes.  But I think those are still entirely separate from the aesthetic attributes of *the rink itself*.  

To take the simplest example - one of the criticisms of Cheel is the shade of  green that the walls are (were?) painted.  That's obviously entirely divorced from the elements of the larger structure that are external to the rink - they could just as easily be purple or off-white or polka-dotted.  I think the same separation applies to other criticisms, such as RichH's point that it feels like it "hides the crowd".

[KeithK]

[quote Josh '99][quote Rich S]What you get is a much-needed (in both the hockey sense and as a meeting place on the Hill campus), privately financed, multi-purpose, very versatile facility with top notch medical and workout rooms, etc.[/quote]It's all well and good that Cheel is privately financed, and centrally located, and a multi-purpose facility (what with being located in, or maybe it's technically adjoining, the student union), and has good medical and workout facilities.  Those are all, I'd say, positive attributes.  But I think those are still entirely separate from the aesthetic attributes of *the rink itself*.  

To take the simplest example - one of the criticisms of Cheel is the shade of  green that the walls are (were?) painted.  That's obviously entirely divorced from the elements of the larger structure that are external to the rink - they could just as easily be purple or off-white or polka-dotted.  I think the same separation applies to other criticisms, such as RichH's point that it feels like it "hides the crowd".[/quote]Similarly, the virtues of Lynah as a hockey facility are largely independant of the building that the rink is now attached too (the Fieldhouse formerly known as Alberding).  The multi-purpose room, weight room facility and basketball court are all valuable additions to the Cornell campus but I don't care one way or the other when I'm watching a hockey game.

[Cop at Lynah]

The top 3 rows on the south side have obstucted views of the corners.  Sections A/B can not see corner by F/G and vise versa.