Ranking of College Hockey Arenas

[ursusminor]

This ranking of 57 of the 59 college hockey arenas might be of interest. You can click on each individual arena. Lynah is #42. Considering the amount of work that seems to have gone into it, the rankings don't make much sense to me, probably because the metric combining the various factors needs improvement.

[Trotsky]

They rank Cheel as the best arena in the ECAC.

Res ipsa loquitur.

[Towerroad]

Read the detailed reviews

They give proper acknowledgement to the Faithful and Tradition but

1. The food sucks

2. "OK...time to talk about the game night staff. If you want to get a job being a ticket taker, usher, or security person at Lynah Rink, the minimal qualifications are that you be at least 70 years old and have spent your life with a permanent scowl that projects how much you hate the world. The staff here is miserable. They will make you feel unwelcome. They will demand to see your ticket stubs at every entry point, despite the fact that all seats are priced the same, benchlike and sold as general admission by section. The pictures that accompany this profile were taken with great difficulty. Try to go section to section and you will be jostled, bothered, and harassed at almost every turn. It is unfortunate and a disgrace that a respected program like Cornell chooses to employ such joyless and horrible people to be their face to the public."

[redice]

Read the detailed reviews

They give proper acknowledgement to the Faithful and Tradition but

1. The food sucks

2. "OK...time to talk about the game night staff. If you want to get a job being a ticket taker, usher, or security person at Lynah Rink, the minimal qualifications are that you be at least 70 years old and have spent your life with a permanent scowl that projects how much you hate the world. The staff here is miserable. They will make you feel unwelcome. They will demand to see your ticket stubs at every entry point, despite the fact that all seats are priced the same, benchlike and sold as general admission by section. The pictures that accompany this profile were taken with great difficulty. Try to go section to section and you will be jostled, bothered, and harassed at almost every turn. It is unfortunate and a disgrace that a respected program like Cornell chooses to employ such joyless and horrible people to be their face to the public."

I used to be one of those ushers.  I quit doing that quite a number of years ago.    So, I cannot justify current practices.    But, I will give  you a perspective that you had probably not considered.    Yes, when that usher is constantly checking tix, he/she is being a pain.    But, did it ever occur to you that that usher is working to exclude unauthorized people from your section.    You know, those extra people who will squeeze into your row and make seating difficult or  impossible for people who belong there??     The ushers are doing that thankless job FOR you and often get shit from people for doing it.   I could tell you (boring) stories!!

BTW, I was one of the younger & cheerful ones.      People actually actually liked me (even though I wasa pain abt showing tix.   I educated me peeps).

[Towerroad]

Read the detailed reviews

They give proper acknowledgement to the Faithful and Tradition but

1. The food sucks

2. "OK...time to talk about the game night staff. If you want to get a job being a ticket taker, usher, or security person at Lynah Rink, the minimal qualifications are that you be at least 70 years old and have spent your life with a permanent scowl that projects how much you hate the world. The staff here is miserable. They will make you feel unwelcome. They will demand to see your ticket stubs at every entry point, despite the fact that all seats are priced the same, benchlike and sold as general admission by section. The pictures that accompany this profile were taken with great difficulty. Try to go section to section and you will be jostled, bothered, and harassed at almost every turn. It is unfortunate and a disgrace that a respected program like Cornell chooses to employ such joyless and horrible people to be their face to the public."

I used to be one of those ushers.  I quit doing that quite a number of years ago.    So, I cannot justify current practices.    But, I will give  you a perspective that you had probably not considered.    Yes, when that usher is constantly checking tix, he/she is being a pain.    But, did it ever occur to you that that usher is working to exclude unauthorized people from your section.    You know, those extra people who will squeeze into your row and make seating difficult or  impossible for people who belong there??     The ushers are doing that thankless job FOR you and often get shit from people for doing it.   I could tell you (boring) stories!!

BTW, I was one of the younger & cheerful ones.      People actually actually liked me (even though I wasa pain abt showing tix.   I educated me peeps).

These are not my words. They were the reviewers words and the 2 big reasons why Lynah was ranked so low in this poll (location was also an issue). Presumably this person has seen a lot of games in a lot of arena's. This is not the first time that this issues has been raised.

[marty]

Read the detailed reviews

 They will demand to see your ticket stubs at every entry point, despite the fact that all seats are priced the same, benchlike and sold as general admission by section.

Must have visited Bizarro Lynah or more likely bought seats at the box office and were seated in the only section that has general admission. Am I correct that this is       Section F?

[BearLover]

That article has a great shot of Section E 90% empty

[KGR11]

From the discussion on Baker Rink's "access".

As far as we could tell, there wasn't much in the way of public transit; you could take the NJ Transit Northeast Corridor Line to the Princeton Station, but I can't say whether that's walking distance, and for what it costs to park at a station you might as well just drive to the campus.

This analysis is so bad it's laughable.  The NJTransit access to Princeton (via the shuttle from Princeton Junction), along with its free parking garage, provides some of the best access in college hockey.

[billhoward]

The site's correspondent in Hanover puts his fingers over the keys and look what comes out for rink #21: "The only thing Dartmouth hockey fans want is for a consistently winning team, and if the men's program continues its current trajectory, even that may no longer be a problem." Dartmouth at #21 looked sterile and cold the day it opened in the 1970s and continues unabated. IIRC correctly the only nice thing is lots of seats, the way Nazi architecture had big going for it, and a big area at top for standing room if / when that ever happens. When you finish 11th of 12 teams in your league, the only upward trajectory would be if you finished 12th year before, and the Big Green finished fourth.

Quinnipiac's "official review" gives the fans 4 stars of 5. Please.

Cornell's "official review" notes, "The rink is located smack dab in the middle of the campus, and actually in a pretty dense area to boot. Mid rise dorms and academic buildings, as well as their football stadium and other athletic facilities crowd the area." This is nitpicky but an editor should boot his hopeless ass for not factchecking: The reviewer notes the food is not good and one of the concession areas serving the not-good food including pizza that did not look good, is outside "the ticket taking perimeter" as if you couldn't get back in but later the scribe notes how you have to carry you ticket at all times, so he should have known it is zero hassle to go between the two concessions and the rink. What would it cost the guy to buy a slice and determine the quality? If you don't this guy, don't expect a fancy meal.

There is something to be said for shining light on the issue of whether the Cornell ushers could use charm lessons. They have never hassled me but then I'm not student age. Does the tension arise from whether or not Cornell is right to say you can't use the F-bomb in the building?

If they're going to rate rinks, there should be a score for quality of lighting and video platforms. I got to Lynah 3 times and I saw a lot more games via webcast. That's my experience.

[billhoward]

The author does qualify by saying "as far as we could tell" which means "without making any calls."

[Trotsky]

The author does qualify by saying "as far as we could tell" which means "new media pulls shit out of its ass; gets clickthroughs; film at 11."

FYP

[Towerroad]

I looked into the background of the guy who did the reviewing. It looks like visting sports venues and reviewing them is his hobby. I read a few of his reviews and they seemed pretty fair. I was convinced he had a pretty broad base of experience for comparison

The bottom line is that he went out of his way to highlight the crappy attitude of the ushers and security staff. This guy could not be mistaken for a student.

I know there is a tendency to rush to the defense of the program any time that an "outsider" criticizes it. In effect some are saying "Yes, they are goons but they are our goons".

Lynah did not sell out this year. Here we have a guy who goes to his first game and does not want to come back because of poor customer service. If this was your business would you find this acceptable?

How do you build the next generation of the Faithful, many of who may be experiencing hockey for the first time at Cornell, if their initial experience with the instituition is so negative? Students have a choice of what to do on Friday and Saturday night. The first step in changing is to admit there is a problem.

[Chris '03]

Being an usher is often a thankless job, especially when dealing with rowdy college students.  However, the mentality ingrained in the Lynah staff is well outside the norm.  RichH has posted here a couple times about the pep talk he had the pleasure of listening to before I'm pretty sure this Harvard game and it's not a model of customer service.

There was always the sense that they were instructed to think that everyone was guilty of something. I've been antagonized by ushers at Lynah on several occasions, even when I knew some of them by name. I've never been antagonized by the staff of any other rink staff over the course of dozens of Cornell road games.

When I was  student the ushers were downright obnoxious to visiting bands even when the Cornell band asked them not to be. Sure other rinks hated when the Cornell band came in but the response was not typically to get aggressive for the sake of being aggressive.

Mercifully, it sounds like they've all moved on from the crusade to make "sucks" a banned word.

[billhoward]

Mercifully, it sounds like they've all moved on from the crusade to make "sucks" a banned word.

"Sucks" is losing the link to the meaning that made it objectionable. "Joystick" crossed over long ago.

I was at a game over the winter, not Cornell, where a fan yelled, "Hey, ref, get off your knees. You're blowing the game." That should have been a tossable offense if they'd located the miscreant since it was directed at one person not a group. (Even if it brought a few snorts of laughter.)

[billhoward]

I looked into the background of the guy who did the reviewing. It looks like visting sports venues and reviewing them is his hobby.

Has to be a hobby. There is no career rating the hot dogs at college rinks.

When you put Lynah fans' attitudes in the perspective of Johnson School terms like "visitor experience," Cornell has room for growth. There was the Hotelie who run a survey of sorts on hockey at Lynah. Perhaps there's room for a more thorough and polished look at Cornell sports and what Cornell could do to get more students and residents to attend. As well as making the experience better for remote attendees via the webcast work in progress (better, yes; good enough, not yet).