Scoreboard

[rhovorka]

OK, well those of you in A, B, N, and O might not notice or care about it as much because it generally isn't in your line of sight while play is on, but from my vantage point, it's very annoying and irritating.  Bright lights that flash and strobe generally make you instictively look at them.  And when I look up and see retarded things like "STOMP..........'em!"  and "NOISE!!!" flashing it makes me upset that this sort of thing has found its way into Lynah.

The thing that surprised me the most on Sunday was that the flashing messages stayed on during play.  What crossed my mind is that if the flashing was distracting me, isn't there a chance that it could distract the goaltender (who probably is scanning for motion) at the far end of the ice, which, for 2 periods happens to don the Cornell sweater?  I'm hoping that the York exhibition was just a try-out-what-the-scoreboard-can-do period, and won't be lit during play in NCAA games.

At least there's no "clapping hands" graphic yet.  I'd rather have just advertisements up there than any cheezy "cheering" slogans.  It's just embarrassing.

The Good:
Goals/Assists announcements
Penalty announcements
50/50 drawing numbers
Out-of-town scores

The Bad:
"STOMP......'em!" (animated feet included)
"MAKE....NOISE!!!"
"The Big Red.....TEARING.....Up the Ice"
"Get on your feet!!"
"POWER PLAY!!!"
any blinking or animation

Tolerable:
"Let's Go Red" only when the crowd is already going
"VISIT....THE....CONSESSIONS!" during intermissions.
"Let's hear it for the kids!" when the Pee Wees are playing during intermission
50/50 winners, but I wouldn't want everyone to know that I'm leaving the rink with several hundreds of dollars.
Advertisements...already up: Shortstop/Hot Truck, WHCU, and a PPG donation to a breast cancer charity promotion.

Besides the flashing message-bar, the new scoreboard is quite nice...not taking up that much more room than the old one.  True, the SOG stats aren't updated until intermissions, but that's the case at many ECAC venues with this feature.

I'd love some anti-scoreboard chants.  And a good prank would be to sabotage the board so it just reads "SUCKS!" all the time.  That would guarantee that Andy "squeaky clean" Noel would pull the plug personally.

Pruit!

[cop at lynah]

A little clarification on the scoreboard.  The top of the board - the message area - is run by someone from the press box area.  The rest of the scoreboard is run from the scorers table.  The thought of the message section being a distraction to the goalie on the east end was the first thing that crossed my mind.  Wait until Clarkson or some other team complains about it and see what happens.

By the way speaking of new, there is one new procedure at Lynah this year.  No one can exit lynah via the bottom of section O or A.  You will be required to exit from the top side.  This an attempt to have the bottom area behind the west glass as unobstructed as possible for media to conduct their interviews.  The only way to get down to the floor after the game is to have a media pass or an athletic pass.

[Greg Berge]

Or for that matter, if our goalie complains.

[Jim Hyla]

Received this reply, to my email complaint, from Laura Strange. I'm sure she doesn't mind my posting it.
[Q]Jim -

Not to worry...the scoreboard is new and all the features were just being
checked out and played with a wee bit on Sunday.  Lynah (fans) certainly don't need encouragement to cheer or be loud!  =)

Look for the new message center to display lineups, out of town scores,
scoring summaries, and other "information" as we get comfortable with all
of the new features.

Thanks for checking in!

Laura Stange
[/Q]
Enough said, I think we can go onto other topics.

[DeltaOne81]

[Q]Enough said, I think we can go onto other topics.[/Q]
Well, I'll still complain tomorrow just so they know there's more displeasure... as for moving onto other things... we'll see the night of Fri Nov 8th.

-Fred

Edit: P.S. But at least they're responsive and appear to care... more than we can say about CornellPass

[Greg Berge]

Excellent news.  Thanks to Laura (who for the record has been a good friend of the Faithful during her tenure).

[CowbellGuy]

[gwm3]

That't not nearly as awful as I was picturing.

[Anne 85]

Thanks for the photo, Age!  The scoreboard is much more traditional-looking than I imagined.  (Probably because no messages are shown.)  I think I like it -- as long as it's not used for robo-cheers.

[DeltaOne81]

The board is fine... nice even... it's bright and attractive and the ads bring in some revenue which is understandable. They just need to learn how to use it with respect to the atmosphere anad traditions of the Lynah faithful...

I said as much in my feedback 5 minutes ago, so I've said my piece :-).

[mha]

I like the idea of the "tasteless response," but I bet all it would take would be for people to start shouting "Up the ice!" when that's displayed on the scoreboard.

(The phrase "Tearing up the ice" is split in two... "Tearing" and "Up the ice!"... yep, capitalized.)

So shall we give it a shot? "Up the ice!"

I hope they got the thing at fire-sale prices. It's an extremely low-quality (read, "high school caliber") board, which doesn't even have descenders on the lower-case letters.

I take it back. Any self-respecting high school with a serious athletics program would never use this thing. Was it free with a thousand Pepsi can tabs or something?

A serious scoreboard with data-display capability could be a very good thing; they just need a better one than this.

[mha]

It's not that bad when turned off, no.

The lower ad panels are vertical-blinds-style rotating ads, and the panels don't fit properly. In other words, even on the very first night of use, the panels didn't settle squarely into place to show the ad properly. They came close, but that should be what happens after months of use.

No matter; the ads are small and badly designed, considering they're behind the goal-end netting, so you can't really see most of what's on them regardless.

It took until I was poking around the mall the other night and spotted the dealership cars in the middle of the hallways before I remembered what "Simmons-Rockwell" was. Seeing the ad on Sunday night did nothing for me but make me scratch my head, as I could barely read even the name.