Pepsi Arena - barely occupied for ECACs?

[billhoward]

Officially, the attendance for the ECAC title event was announced as 7093. That has to be tickets sold in advance and maybe, maybe not used. The arena has a capcity of 6000 to 17,500 (17,500 for concerts). The lower half is 6,500 which is what the River Rats cite. (Does anybody have the upper deck/lower deck seating total for ice hockey? It's not well publicized.) [edit: it's about 13,500 for hockey]

Do we think the fans in attendance Saturday would have filled Lynah Rink? It seemed as if the upper deck had a couple hundred people and the lower area was, what, half full? I'd love to know the ticket count of people admitted into the arena after the conclusion of the first game. That plus a couple hundred Colgate/Dartmouth fans who stayed on, or Cornell fans who watched both (Harvard has none) would be the body count for the title game.

This is a far cry from the old ECAC tournaments in Boston when BU, UNH, BC, etcetera, were in our league.

Regardless of actual numbers, what it felt like was this: The hockey was exciting, but it didn't have the full-house electricty of the Frozen Four, the old ECAC, or some of the NCAA regionals. Or Lynah for that matter. Or, alas, college hoops. Great that you can get a seat, and get a good seat for that matter ... but lousy for excitement once you're in the building.

[jtwcornell91]

We moved from Lake Placid to Albany because the central location and larger rink was supposed to allow the championship to grow.  Anyone who's been to both want to compare the atmospheres four years down the road?

[Al DeFlorio]

[quote jtwcornell91]Anyone who's been to both want to compare the atmospheres four years down the road?[/quote]
I feel a whine coming on.

[abmarks]

I think we more than would have filed Lynah.  The issue will always be, regardles of location, which teams are playing.

If we had been playing RPI, Clarkson, St. Lawrence or maybe even Union, you've got to believe there would be a much bigger crowd on hand.  And don't forget that when the tourney moved, Vermont was part of teh equation and they would have been there in force as well.  Atmosphere takes two sets of fans to create in a tourney game.  If Harvard brought as many fans as we had, the lower bowl would have been pretty damn full.  

A close game helps too.  It's not an Albany example, but in Providence in 03 for the NCAA first two rounds there was a fantastic atmosphere, especially in our second round game.  I'd say there werent any more fans there on that afternoon than at the Pepsi yesterday, but we had a barn-burner of a game.  Low-scoring one goal game - overtime wasn't it?

Tourney atmosphere should be one of the last considerations.  Lake Placid is quaint, but it's a real haul for about half the league to get to, and it's expensive to stay there.  Like Albany or not, but it's far more central and cheaper and yes, it's a better arena.  If you want more fans to show up, then find a way to get a bigger rink in a place that people actually want to go.  Play it in Boston like it used to be.  (yeah I know it's expensive and further for a lot of teams blah blah.)  But at least it's a place where there is something to do and that has hockey fans.  Use BC's rink...it holds 7,000 plus.  This is just one example.  Albany is about as good a compromise as you are going to get if you want 10,000+ seats.  Feel free to make other locational suggestions.

And from a Cornell-centric view, you'll get a much bigger cornell fan turnout anywhere OTHER than Lake Placid.  It's just too far from NYC and Boston, where some of our biggest alum bases are.

My 2 cents.

Arik

Putting the ecacs in Lake placid was like what holding the WCHA's in Aspen would be.  Ridiculous.

[Rita]

[quote abmarks]
Putting the ecacs in Lake placid was like what holding the WCHA's in Aspen would be.  Ridiculous.[/quote]

I would like to see the latter happen, just to piss off the gopher fans!!!

[marty]

They use that same math to count attendees that is used at the RIP games.  I think the RIP folks think that if they announce a larger crowd then the amount of gambling on the 50/50 will be proportionally higher.  It's an engineering estimate. ;-)

And, of course, RIP is the "Ghost Host" for the ECACs and exaggerate the attendance for consistency.

[JDeafv]

I was talking with somebody after the game, and they estimated the hockey capacity at 13,500 for Pepsi Arena.

They also estimated in 2004 they had 10,000 people for the East Regional (Maine, Sucks, Ohio State, Wisconsin).

[atb9]

The hockey capacity is slightly under 15,000.

http://www.uscho.com/news/id,4465/ECACFinalizesAlbanyDeal

6,489 showed up for the Championship in 2004 between Clarkson and Harvard.  It is clear that Harvard does not help attendance.

The Albany River Rats have averaged slightly under 4000 fans (3984 in 2005, 3971 in 2006) http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/hockey/ahl/stats/2006/ahlatt/ and they are changing affiliates for next year.

[ithacat]

[quote abmarks]If you want more fans to show up, then find a way to get a bigger rink in a place that people actually want to go.  Play it in Boston like it used to be.  (yeah I know it's expensive and further for a lot of teams blah blah.)  But at least it's a place where there is something to do and that has hockey fans.  Use BC's rink...it holds 7,000 plus.  This is just one example.  Albany is about as good a compromise as you are going to get if you want 10,000+ seats.  Feel free to make other locational suggestions.
[/quote]

Suddenly, I'm longing for a move to Madison Square Garden.

[marty]

[quote JDeafv]I was talking with somebody after the game, and they estimated the hockey capacity at 13,500 for Pepsi Arena.

They also estimated in 2004 they had 10,000 people for the East Regional (Maine, Sucks, Ohio State, Wisconsin).[/quote]

Hockey capacity is right around 11,000 at Pepsi.  That is why they won't get another NCAA final.  The 2001 attendance for the NCAAa will get you the exact figure.  After the 2001 tourney the Pepsi folks wanted to be condidered for another final four and vowed to add seating capacity.  I assume that would mean sky boxes - literally - hanging from the girders.  Perhaps those in the ceiling seats would be offered prizes if they could do a high wire act. ::nut:: It sure would beat the "push the cardboard cake on the ice" contest.

There haven't been any significant changes since 2001.

If they get close to 10,000 for the regional then 5000+ will be making the trip from Orono and thereabouts.  At least we'll have a Badger and a Buckeye in the house.::snore::

[DeltaOne81]

13,667 apparently:

http://www.uscho.com/box/?date=20010407&vis=und&home=bc&gender=m

Still, yes, too small for a FF, as is anything that's not an NHL arena now.

[Chris \'03]

[quote DeltaOne81]13,667 apparently:

http://www.uscho.com/box/?date=20010407&vis=und&home=bc&gender=m

Still, yes, too small for a FF, as is anything that's not an NHL arena now.[/quote]

Or NFL Field....::rolleyes::

[billhoward]

[quote marty][quote JDeafv]I was talking with somebody after the game, and they estimated the hockey capacity at 13,500 for Pepsi Arena.

They also estimated in 2004 they had 10,000 people for the East Regional (Maine, Sucks, Ohio State, Wisconsin).[/quote]

Hockey capacity is right around 11,000 at Pepsi.  That is why they won't get another NCAA final.  The 2001 attendance for the NCAAa will get you the exact figure.  After the 2001 tourney the Pepsi folks wanted to be condidered for another final four and vowed to add seating capacity.  I assume that would mean sky boxes - literally - hanging from the girders.  Perhaps those in the ceiling seats would be offered prizes if they could do a high wire act. ::nut:: It sure would beat the "push the cardboard cake on the ice" contest.

There haven't been any significant changes since 2001.

If they get close to 10,000 for the regional then 5000+ will be making the trip from Orono and thereabouts.  At least we'll have a Badger and a Buckeye in the house.::snore::[/quote]

Stats from 2001 BC-North Dakota title game in Albany say 13,252 attended. http://bceagles.collegesports.com/sports/m-hockey/stats/040701aaa.html Besides, if total capacity is around 17,500 seated and hockey capacity is ~11,000, could you really get 6,500 chairs on the floor? That's about 3 square feet per person. I'm having a hard time believing you could get 4,000 chairs in a 200x85 space (17,000 square feet) unless the dozen (?) rows of seats on metal bleachers behind the glass but in front of the permanent stands convert to even more seats for a concert. (Edit: See adjacent post from USCHO game box score saying 13,667 attended.)


Albany would be nuts trying to add another couple thousand seats for, what, a handful of events each year. Maybe they think they'll get Springsteen to divert from Meadowlands Stadium?

[quote Pepsi Arena] Owned by Albany County and operated by SMG, the world's largest private management firm for public assembly facilities, the Pepsi Arena has an adaptable seating capacity between 6,000 and 17,500. Since Frank Sinatra christened the building on January 30, 1990, more than seven million patrons have walked through the turnstiles. http://www.pepsiarena.com/index.cfm?a=10053  [/quote]

[DeltaOne81]

Lake Placid is a beautiful, wonderful, amazing town, and I am thrilled that I got to see an ECAC title weekend there. Even with the result.


But on the other hand, lets not romanticize it too much. There were hardly enough hotel rooms and some people had to stay a good distance away. The hotels were alright, but the average was probably dingy around the worst of Albany, and the prices were jacked up for the ECAC weekend.

And lets not forgot the week-in-advance cancellation rule. So that if you wanted a room in town, you had to book in advance, *hope* your team made it, and if they didn't, you couldn't cancel. Maybe that's why there were as many people as there were - cause they all had hotel rooms they couldn't cancel.

Parking was a major pain around game time, esp on Saturday. It just couldn't hold that many people.


Lake Placid is an amazing, historic place, but lets not forget about all the problems associated with such a small town - the fact that they had the Olympics there still boggles my mind. Not the least of which is that it's about 3 hours from even the closest other places - where as Albany seems to be about 3 hours from everywhere.


The WCHA doesn't hold their tourney in Aspen, the CCHA doesn't have theirs on the Upper Peninsular of Michigan, and Hockey East doesn't hold theirs in Vermont's Northeast Kingdown, as beautiful as spots in those areas probably are. Albany may not be a magical city, but I really think its not a bad city, and the area around the Pepsi and State St/Crown Plaza/NY State Plaza/Capital Building is pretty nice. And lord knows that St. Paul, Detroit, and Boston have plenty detractors.

[nshapiro]

What about the Hartford Civic Center?  It once hosted a winter college hockey tournament, and is closer to alumni populations in NYC and Boston.