Lynah remodel - keeping up with the Joneses

[billhoward]

Another hockey program finds its newer- and bigger-than-Lynah Rink inadequate to the task. The Bulldogs' DECC, built 1966, capacity 5,233, isn't up to snuff for Minnesota-Duluth:

[q]2-3-2005 ... The Duluth (Minn.) Entertainment and Convention Center has chosen local architects in conjunction with renowned HOK Sport to design a new arena that would, among other things, house the UMD hockey programs. According to the Duluth News-Tribune, DECC officials are looking to get planning money from the state Legislature this year and construction money in 2006. Arena construction could start as early as July of 2006 and open for hockey by October of 2008. The DECC anticipates a cost of $45 million for an arena that would see 6,500 for hockey. http://www.uscho.com/news/briefs.php  [/q]

They rank 14thin attendance but they're not playing to capacity crowds right now:

Team               Dates   AvgAttend   Capacity   % Cap.
Wisconsin      18   12615   14,385   87.7
N Dakota       16   10690   11,500   93.0
Minnesota       18   10490   9,700   108.1
Michigan       14   6810   6,637   102.6
Colorado C     18   6736   7,343   91.7
Ohio State     17   6493   17,500   37.1
NHampshire     15   6332   6,110   103.6
Denver         15   6058   6,200   97.7
BC                       11   5901   7,884   74.8
Neb-Omaha      16   5899   14,700   40.1
St. Cloud St   14   5863   5,763   101.7
Michigan St    13   5733   6,470   88.6
Maine          17   5630   5,587   100.8
Minn-Duluth              16   4935   5,233   94.3
Boston U        14   4576   3,684   124.2
Minnesota St   15   4446   4,832   92.0
Alaska-A’age    14   3974   6,206   64.0
Vermont        16   3864   4,035   95.8
Dartmouth      15   3847   4,500   85.5
Cornell        12   3836   3,836   100.0
Mass Amherst   16   3588   8,389   42.8
AlaskaF’anks   12   3494   4,324   80.8
N Michigan     14   3417   3,754   91.0
Rensselaer     17   3221   5,217   61.7
Yale           13   3098   3,486   88.9

http://www.uscho.com/stats/attendance.php

In other words, $45 million to increase seating by about 1300 (24%) at a time when they're playing to less than capacity crowds already.

Would that this USCHO table have columns for year built and cost in current dollars. Does anyone recall Lynah's construction cost? Multiply that by about 6.2 to get the cost in today's dollars (using a generic CPI calculator, not a construction price index calculator). Yale's Ingalls' rink, also 1958, came in at twice the projected cost, but that was just $1.5 million or about $10 million in current day dollars. The 1975 Dartmouth rink cost $4.4 million or about $16 million (2005 dollars).

Makes we wish Cornell dusts off plans to turn the west end into seating not a white brick wall.

[Robb]

Right at $7k per seat in construction costs.  Figure Cornell could do a little better than that - we don't need a Taj Engelstad, say 5k per seat.  At $120 per season ticket, it would take 42 years just to pay the initial construction costs.  Can't really count on NY, Thompkins County, or Ithaca building a rink for us (maybe we SHOULD start calling ourselves SUNY-Ithaca!).  Private donations are obviously the only way to go, unless we want to see how many townies would pony up a $5k seat license [i.e. extortion] fee...

I can't see Cornell needing/wanting more than about 5k seats - 6k is certainly on the high side, so that's $25-30M needed right up front.  Pretty steep when Lynah probably meets 80-85% of the current demand "for free."

[Trotsky]

And Lynah exceeds, by a huge margin, any future facility in intimacy, tradition, etc.

Lacking the desire to replace things just for the hell of it, I have never been able to understand the drive to replace Lynah.  It's ideal.  Leave it alone.

[Al DeFlorio]

[Q]Trotsky Wrote:

And Lynah exceeds, by a huge margin, any future facility in intimacy, tradition, etc.

Lacking the desire to replace things just for the hell of it, I have never been able to understand the drive to replace Lynah.  It's ideal.  Leave it alone.[/q]
While I share that sentiment, I must admit to not knowing whether a 47-year-old rink of sub-4,000 capacity is a detriment to recruiting the kind of player needed to get Cornell hockey to the level Mike Schafer wants--and intends--to take it.

[billhoward]

[Q]Trotsky Wrote:  And Lynah exceeds, by a huge margin, any future facility in intimacy, tradition, etc. Lacking the desire to replace things just for the hell of it, I have never been able to understand the drive to replace Lynah.  It's ideal.  Leave it alone.[/q] The suburbs are the place where, once you and your kind get in, you and your kind want to keep out everyone else and their kind. If you have season tickets, you're a happy camper. It's reasonable to wonder if Cornell could not bring the joys of Cornell ice hockey to 5,000, not 3,800, fans each winter. That the waiting list is, say, 500 names long (I'm making that # up) doesn't mean there aren't two or five times that many people who would buy season tickets if they had the chance. And who's to say Cornell couldn't grow the audience? Wisonsin more than doubled its facility in 1998 and it's still just about full.

The most cost-effective step would be to put seats in the west end, assuming that doesn't make the rest of the roof fall in. And the most cost-effective way to do this cost-effective step would be to troll for one donor who wants the wing named in his or her honor, or maybe they share the building name. I don't think you're going to be able to raise ticket prices to the level that includes the mortgage payment on the seat.

All this happens after Cornell fixes up the locker rooms so they're competitive with other Top Ten D1 schools have.

And yes, maybe there is a place for an upper tier box, glassed in, for well-heeled hockey supporters. People who grouse about corporate boxes at pro sporting events are the ones who haven't been invited into them. I'm proud to say I love them and I wish more people invited me to them, not just once every couple years. By the way, the Yankees' corporate boxes are dumps. You have to - gag - eat pretty much the same food as the regular fans. On the other hand, it's free (excluding the implicit quid pro quo of your business or your friendship that the box holder is looking for), and somebody brings beer to you. If it rains, you stay dry. If it's humid, you keep the glass windows shut and crank up the air conditioning (which causes the windows to fog up - see, luxury boxes aren't without their drawbacks). If you miss the play, it's on instant replay and not the crappy low-res jumbotron 400 feet away. If you have to go to the bathroom, it's a few steps away. The only drawback is you have to shake hands and exchange business cards very properly with Mister Yoshimuraki, or tell the folks at Carter-Fladstone Industries how much you think they're developing a new paradigm for the future of in-place concrete cast highway barrricades.

More seriously: If I did a luxury box, and I'm not the guy with the pockets to pay for it, I'd make it seat 100 and half the seats would be for the backers. The other half would be for players' parents or girlfriends *if that's where they want to sit* and maybe ten seats are drawn per game or per year by lottery to members of the Ithaca Hockey Boosters who couldn't afford this kind of stuff but who are loyal fans. Or maybe by lottery to anyone who's been a season ticket holder for ten years.

One of the things I dislike about present-day America is the belief that it's immoral for those who are well off to, once they've paid and paid their taxes, to lead the good life. Sure, if you buy a Ferrari, you're drawing down our hydrocarbon reserve, but only 1,000 Ferraristas a year do that and most of them drive < 3,000 miles a year, by the way. Bill Gates does not endanger America's highway safety buying a Porsche 959 that doesn't have 5 mph bumpers.

So, no, I'm not necessarily pushing for Lynah Rink II. But I do hope Cornell gives serious thought to adding on to Lynah now, while the team is hot, while we have a hot coach, while we have a president who loves hockey (Jeff not George).

[KeithK]

[q]While I share that sentiment, I must admit to not knowing whether a 47-year-old rink of sub-4,000 capacity is a detriment to recruiting the kind of player needed to get Cornell hockey to the level Mike Schafer wants--and intends--to take it. [/q]One of the big selling points of the Cornell program is the Lynah experience.  I keep reading quotes of players who were sold on Cornell after coming to their first game at Lynah.  Now maybe there are plenty of others who walk away saying "That place is pretty loud, but they don't have a weight room in the building and the coaches office is upstairs, so lI think I'll go elsewhere."

I assure you, 3800 filled seats are better than 4500 capacity without sellouts.

[upperdeck]

the plans to increase lynah have taken a hit with the new life sciences building going on line.. of the 3 projects that were in the works the south west annex is a go, the west end project that may or may not have included seating is pretty much a dead deal and the north west end project probably will get the go ahead but may get changed when the final life sciences plans go in..  it seems to me that if/when a new lynah ever goes on line it will happen at a new site probably towards the south of campus.. it also seems that you could could add some seating (maybe 5000 tops) and still create a building with the same lines and feel... but i also doubt we could sell 5000 on a consistent basis, right now the demand  for season tickets only adds a few hundred people..

[jy3]

interestingly enough when I was back on campus last year most weekends visiting my now wife at the vet school, I heard a lot of talk about cornell moving athletic facilities further off campus, near where the new baseball fields are going over by game farm road. it seems strange considering the new stands, the new wall, the wrestling center. i dont know, there were rumors. no clue about itl, though, and no validation. anyone heard any of these musings?

[Jacob '06]

I think its going to eventually become necessary. In the next few years the alumni fields behind Bartels are going to be filled in with buildings, and that will leave all the grass sports without practice fields. They are going to have to make up for that with some sort of practice fields somewhere else. I think Cornell's drive for state of the art research facilities is stronger than their drive for good atheltic programs.

[Robb]

Ugh.  I think an off-campus rink (ok, so Cornell probably owns land contiguously out to the game farm, but that's still off-campus as far as I'm concerned) would be a serious blow to Cornell hockey fandom.  I just can't see any way that I'd be convinced that a 5000 seat off-campus sterile box could be better for the Cornell hockey program than playing in Lynah Rink.

[rich]

After 23 years of seasons tickets and 23 years of knees in the back, it is time for some comfy seats, even if it is a few bucks more than what we are paying now. I buy four seasons tickets ( for two adults and two of my kids). If BU can do it, so can CORNEll! When we have seen the good, the bad and the ugly, lets have some good for ourselves for once. We deserve it as fans and our team deserves it . It could be a great recruiting tool as well.

[Mr. Timekeeper]

I couldn't agree more!  Yes, make improvements--better and more seating; improved locker, training and fittness rooms; improve the press facilities and offices, and, sorry, install netting, etc., but PLEASE keep the character and location intact.  To build a new rink out in East Ithaca somewhere would be an unforgivable insult to everyone (players and their families, coaches, "bandies", fans, etc.) ever associated with Lynah since 1957, and the Cornell Hockey programs would suffer.

[Nate 04]

I think it'd be too bad to keep moving fields off campus.  As a student and huge sports fan, I enjoyed taking a stroll up to watch an occasional track meet, soccer game or baseball game.  I always wanted to go watch a friend play tennis or catch one of the softball or polo games, but they are played too far away for just the spur of the moment stroll to watch a game.  While Cornell is committed to being a research university and academics come first, it still needs to think about it's students and their happiness (we do pay a few of the bills).  For a lot of us sports are a big part of our lives and supporting our classmates on the playing field is just as important as cheering on the microbiology researchers.

[Liz \'05]

[Q]Nate 04 Wrote:

 I think it'd be too bad to keep moving fields off campus.  As a student and huge sports fan, I enjoyed taking a stroll up to watch an occasional track meet, soccer game or baseball game.  I always wanted to go watch a friend play tennis or catch one of the softball or polo games, but they are played too far away for just the spur of the moment stroll to watch a game.  While Cornell is committed to being a research university and academics come first, it still needs to think about it's students and their happiness (we do pay a few of the bills).  For a lot of us sports are a big part of our lives and supporting our classmates on the playing field is just as important as cheering on the microbiology researchers.[/q]

Seconded.  I've actually stopped to watch a baseball game because I was walking by it.  And honestly, while I'm sure nanotechnology is important, I couldn't tell you why Cornell built a building for it, or why they had to put it in the middle of a perfectly nice, grassy engineering quad.  Same goes for any buildings planned for Alumni Fields - why can't graduate research go further off campus?

[Cornell95]

Cornell certainly is suffering some growing pains, and space is at a premium these days.  That said, there are tons of politics involved in getting anything built and master planning is a minefield.  I heard very few good reasons for why the new biotech center is being built on the practice fields instead of on the Ag quad which really needs a building to close the space where Roberts/Stone Halls used to be (North of Trillium).  There seems to be plenty of odd decisions happenning recently (what ever happened to that monstrosity of an idea for replacing Rand Hall?) and there is a lot of work that must be done (I know that there has been talk of upgrading and relocating the physical plant (power plant) at a location further south of campus (the "orchards" already have ceded some land to librayr storage among other projects).  When the new nanotech facility was being proposed I recommended that it be sited where the powerplant is now, a great flag ship building at the entrance, easy access for chemicals delivery on Rt366 and reuse of an already chemically impacted site).

I suppose a kick ass hockey rink and parking structure could also be placed at that entrance as an alternative