With attendance flagging, Gopher men's hockey looks for answers on ice and off

BleedGopher

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per The Athletic:

The hockey program has enjoyed a healthy fanbase for decades, and with it, the athletic department budget benefitted, with men’s hockey leading all NCAA hockey programs in revenue. Announced attendance at Mariucci Arena has historically hovered near its capacity of 10,000 and men’s hockey revenues peaked at $7.683 million in 2013-14. The Gophers brought in $6.230 million in 2015-16 and the second highest revenue producer in college hockey that year was Wisconsin at $4.796 million.

It’s obvious this season that attendance at 3M Arena at Mariucci has declined, as empty seats stand out in the bright bowl of the arena on television and marketing staff deal with a season-ticket-holder base that’s declined by 30 percent from 7,765 to 5,474, with ticketing staff routinely seeing 30 percent of distributed tickets go unused.

The actual attendance for this season's Oct. 15 game against Penn State was 4,917, the lowest number in the building for any regular-season game in the last four years. The scanned number for Wisconsin on Dec. 2 was 6,407, the lowest it has been for a rivalry game in the last four years. This is also the first season since moving into their new arena that there have been announced attendance numbers under 9,000.

“It’s not other people’s problems that people aren’t coming to our games,” Coyle said. “It’s on us to figure out how to get people to come to our games, and there’s no doubt that it’s a concern for us that we’ve got to figure out.”

The phrase tossed around the new Athlete Village offices in 2018 was coined by Gophers football coach P.J. Fleck. It states you can’t give anyone a reason to cut you. There were certainly a couple reasons to cut Gopher hockey handed out over the past couple seasons, including reseating their ticket holders based on donation history priority and increased ticket costs tied to mandatory scholarship seating donations.

The biggest complaint maroon and gold fans voice is the loss of their rivals after a conference move from the WCHA to the Big Ten. The realignment of college hockey not only meant Minnesota wouldn’t get to play Minnesota Duluth, North Dakota and Minnesota State as often, but they’d be forced to add four conference games each with Michigan State, Ohio State and Penn State. The Gophers won league titles during the last two years of the WCHA and the first four years of the Big Ten, but that couldn’t stop a decline in ticket usage from 7,827 attending games in 2014-15 to 7,139 in 2015-16 to 7,063 in 2016-17 and 6,106 this season, which is up from under 6,000 after a late-January visit from No. 1 Notre Dame brought easily the largest two-game crowd of the season.

Gophers head coach Don Lucia often gets fans coming up to him to gripe about missing the old WCHA, but to him the old WCHA he played in actually included many of the teams that now make up the new conference — Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Michigan State, and Notre Dame. He remembers that league as the one that Minnesota battled through towards its first three NCAA championships in 1974, 1976 and 1979.

“For me, the narrative has to change because from Day 1 it’s been the negative of the Big Ten,” Lucia said. “Hey, we can go back and say Minnesota was not a proponent of Big Ten hockey — we were perfectly fine in our little world. It would have been great if Penn State would’ve joined the CCHA, they had 12, we had 12 and life moved on, but that’s not what happened. We are a member of the Big Ten, and so the change happened.”

https://theathletic.com/222834/2018...on-lucia-ncaa-tournament-mariucci-mark-coyle/

Go Gophers!!
 

Fans simply need to GET OVER IT!!!


Notre Dame is the #1 ranked team in the country right now!!!

Ohio St is ranked #6.

Minnesota is ranked #9.

PSU, Mich & Wisc all hover somewhere on the bubble.

Minnesota may be in 6th in the conf standings, but they have 6 conf games remaining while the teams in 3rd, 4th and 5th only have 4.

And Notre Dame may be uncatchable, but they could help us move all the way up to 2nd if we cooperate and win most of our remaining games.


And EVERY single series from here to the end of the regular season, and then in the conf tourney is going to matter, and not just every series, but EVERY SINGLE GAME!!!

This is exciting, and/or it should be for all Gopher fans.


B1G Hockey IS, right now, very competitive and could be for years to come.


Fans need to get back on board, the Gophers are NEVER EVER EVER going back to the old WCHA, so OMG, let it go already!!!
 

per The Athletic:

The biggest complaint maroon and gold fans voice is the loss of their rivals after a conference move from the WCHA to the Big Ten.

That, I believe, is BS. I'm pretty sure the biggest complaints are seat donations and uninspired play. I think the season ticket holders who've bailed recently in our section weren't pissed off about seeing Michigan rather than Minnesota State.
 

That, I believe, is BS. I'm pretty sure the biggest complaints are seat donations and uninspired play. I think the season ticket holders who've bailed recently in our section weren't pissed off about seeing Michigan rather than Minnesota State.

Current STH. Excitement about home games:
1. UND
2. uw
T3. UMD
T3. SCSU
5. MNSU
6, 7, 8. DU or Notre Dame or Michigan
 

Current STH. Excitement about home games:
1. UND
2. uw
T3. UMD
T3. SCSU
5. MNSU
6, 7, 8. DU or Notre Dame or Michigan

As a STH, that's not my list; but I should have made my point clearer. Kicking the B1G aside and joining the NCHC would not return fans to Mariucci. I think there are more important issues to address. Thus, scheduling problems are down the list of my concerns. I'm worried they will spend time trying to solve the wrong problem.
 


It's pretty low on the list for me, too. The things that'll keep me from dropping tickets, which I never thought I would do:

1. New coaching staff
2. Season ticket + parking overall price decrease. Not getting the value for the price anymore when you factor in atmosphere and on ice performance.
3. Fill up the student section (free tickets)
4. Get the band more involved/consistently in attendance
5. Improve the food options. Right now it's brutal. At least have mini donuts...
 

For once I agree with the Don. It was always a sideshow playing in a different conference than all the other sports. The money and exposure of BTN should elevate every hockey program and make the B1G the equivalent of the SEC in football. Schedule the state schools in the non conf and DON'T LOSE to them. The best thing to restore attendance would be to get a new coach. Lucia has run his course.
 

Can all of you Lucia haters name me the long list of coaches currently coaching in Div 1 Men's college hockey with more Frozen Fours than Lucia has gotten Minnesota to in the last 6 years?

It shouldn't be that difficult when there is only 1 person on the list.
 

And how many FF could other coaches have gotten to with these rosters? Can't wait for the new staff! If you're watching the game tonight I'm sure you agree except for one guy! Gopher hockey has no swagger anymore.
 



And how many FF could other coaches have gotten to with these rosters? Can't wait for the new staff! If you're watching the game tonight I'm sure you agree except for one guy! Gopher hockey has no swagger anymore.

What team's have this mysterious so called swagger you speak of???

How do you not recognize how much the NHL has robbed College hockey, most especially the blue bloods, of their best players???



all of the stats support this.



But all of your Lucia haters go out of your way to ignore this info? I don't get it?
 

# of players each state has sent to the NHL

2002-03 season

Minnesota had 23 in the NHL
Michigan had 19 in the NHL
New York had 18 in the NHL
Illinois had 6 in the NHL
California had 3 in the NHL

That is 69 players by those 5 states.

Those same 5 states, just 5 years later,

Minnesota had 41 in the NHL
Michigan had 30 in the NHL
New York had 28 in the NHL
Illinois had 11 in the NHL
California had 7 in the NHL

For a total of 117.


117 > 69.


That's ALMOST double in just 5 years, and YES, the 5 years directly AFTER the Gopher's back to back titles.
 

I'm seeing stuff on Twitter saying today's game is sold out. Who know how actual attendance is going to be, but it's something! Maybe all the gophers need to do is just be consistent and not so up and down during the season.
 

Interesting attendance numbers in that article. Loved the comment about bringing your 5 year old to the game. We sit near the student sections and are tired of the opposing coach being called and A**hole during the announcements EVERY.SINGLE.TIME. Add to that changing the last line in the penalty cheer to "worthless piece of s*** AND when the Badgers are in town hearing the singsong "F*** the Badgers" as often as "Let's go Gophers" hurts the thought that people enjoy bring their small children or grandchildren to the game. Could stop the incivility in one weekend but they really do not care.
 



They've (mainly) been the equivalent of a non top-25/non-tournament NCAA Basketball squad for the last decade.

Are we surprised by this? Just look across the street at the tackleball or peachbasket grounds.
 

The ice disk side has been the equivalent of a non-top-25/non-NCAA tournament peachbasket side for the past decade.

Are we surprised? Just look across the street at interest/attendance for peachbasket or tackleball grounds.
 

The ice disk side has been the equivalent of a non-top-25/non-NCAA tournament peachbasket side for the past decade.

Are we surprised? Just look across the street at interest/attendance for peachbasket or tackleball grounds.

National runner up is the equivalent of a non top 25 tournament peach basket?
 

I'm pretty sure Herb could still get more out of these players than Lucia can.

And yes, I know Herb has passed.
 

It's clear the Minnesota Wild have provided a superior fan experience and have cut into the Gophers fan base. Hockey fans want to see elite hockey and they simply don't view Gopher hockey as an elite experience.
The question for the Athletic Department is how do they change the average fans mind? Screaming "get over it" won't cut it anymore. The AD has to make changes and make it fun for kids to attend games and ultimately want to grow up and play for the Gophers. I just came back from Phoenix. There were St Cloud and UMD sweatshirts, but no Gopher fans. UMN has to win that fan base back.
 




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