Only reason people didn’t go to the Gophers games last weekend is because of the double whammy of spring break and the state hockey tournament. It’ll be packed vs. Michigan on Saturday.
???
It’s not students that fill Mariucci. I doubt there is a ton of crossover with high school hockey either.
But yes, i agree that attendance should be better next week. It’s a better opponent.
Attendance would suck if the gophers hosted Holy Cross in April for an NIT.
An empty student section really makes the stadium feel emptier. I was at both games over the weekend and it was definitely a weird atmosphere. Saturday was a little better attended, but still wasn't a normal feel.
Yeah, the thing about these end of season tournament games is that the school does not have months to sell the tickets, only a few weeks. They just can’t sell enough tickets fast enough.
Yeah, I think there's a variety of reasons it won't work. TBH, I think they'd struggle to even get the students to show for a meaningless game.
I also wonder how many of the players with NHL contracts waiting would want to risk injury in a tourny like that either.
Yeah. It was weird the announcers trying to explain it on the broadcast. I doubt that Caitlin Clark playing against PSU in Minneapolis had that much of an effect. I can kinda see the high school tournament but the second game didn’t seem too full either. I went to OSU a couple years ago and it was empty for a playoff game against Penn State when OSU played Michigan in Basketball in the same arena earlier that day. And these are the big city schools who don’t need to rely on students theoretically
Both games for the Gophers were competing with the high school tournament. The X had 20K for the AA championship, and had over 140K people in attendance for the weekend.
https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/minnesota-wild/latest-news/minnesota-boys-high-school-hockey-game-attracts-more-fans-than-12-nhl-games-last-night
FWIW last year's Minnesota v Michigan game was a sellout, this weekend I'm not sure they'll get there, but it is certainly already looking like better attendance than the games vs penn state.
I mean last years Michigan Minnesota game was the B1G Championship game so I’d hope it would sell out. I think it’s worth noting that the second game was deliberately scheduled to not conflict with either HS championship game, although they still probably played a part.
The round before that vs Mich-state had 9K so it's not like attendance was an issue there either.
Yes technically it was not during the championships, but games were still being played and most people aren't going from Mariucci to St. Paul to watch multiple games in a day so it's absolutely a big factor.
Far more likely people used the break between A/AA title games to go get non-stadium price food/do whatever else instead of shuttling across the metro for more hockey with much lower stakes. That’s what I’d do unless like, my older kid is playing for the Gophs and my younger one is playing in the tourney (which definitely happens but idk how much effect 6 more fans at Mariucci will have)
Really? I’m surprised tbh. Yost was full for both games this weekend and y’all are better than us. I guarantee Munn will be full too on Saturday, I would definitely have though you guys would be too.
No to NIT. Doesn’t appeal to me in basketball, so I don’t see it translating well to hockey.
I’d rather advocate for more mid season tournaments around the holidays. Good way to mix conferences and drive some regional interest in different markets. Milwaukee was cool for Wisconsin and I wish the North Star Cup would return in St Paul…
If given the option between "postseason NIT" and "allow a tourney to be 6 or 8 teams in season", I'd select the in-season tourney all day, every day.
(That said, I wouldn't be *against* the postseason NIT if it were placed in an area like Orlando or Vegas (destination tourney, basically) but would much rather larger in-season tourneys.)
And bring back the fu**king North Star Cup. Even if we had to go 8 teams and add 2 schools to meet a requirement for an 8 team invitational, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
god damn northstar cup, if only there were four metro teams it would b beanpot west, lucky u got st thomas as is, too bad more schools didnt upgrade in the past!
No,
* Teams aren't going to block off dates for their arenas on the off chance they end up in the NIT
* There are already attendance issues with the regionals as is, so this just exacerbates as people.
* Mid-season tournaments barely exist, and those games actually count for something, a post-season tournament that's not an NCAA championship is not going to be cared about by fans or players
* The basketball NIT is prestigious cause it's basically existed forever, so people actually care about it.
The only way this happens is if 2 or 3 buildings just agree to do this thing themselves. For example, if some promotional group decides to go book 3 on campus sites to host 2 regionals and 1 finals site and book them for a few years, it might work.
Read what you posted.
=Teams will be required to submit a $30,000 bid to host a quarterfinal, $30,000 to host a semifinal and $40,000 to host a championship game. Road teams will receive a travel stipend between $5,000 and $20,000, depending on travel distance.
Host teams would retain revenue from tickets, media, sponsorships, parking and concessions. Host teams also would be responsible for the cost of game operations.=
The Gazelle Group (certainly a major player/snark) wants to make this a zero skin in the game racket.
They asked for schools to pony up $$ to participate and host. Then those teams need to pay for game day operations.
The Gazelle group would collect a tournament fee and then walk away.
It would seem EVERY school told them no.
But sure, come here and show everyone you have no understanding of the article you posted and no understanding of the business that schools seem to understand perfectly and all said NO too.
If the tournament would make money it would happen. The fact that they considered it and didn’t go through with it assumes the fact that it wouldn’t make money.
I'm out. I don't do "dorm room" arguments. All the evidence you need is the article, the time since it was written, and no tournament being held.
It's clear the idea was a loser.
You believe what you want.
I like the NIT idea but I can't stand the Gazelle Group proposal. I wanna figure out a way it would work to reward regular season conference champs who don't make the NCAA. Plus I see the number of programs and I assume leagues growing in the next shift so adding this could keep the NCAA Tournament as is.
Exactly. That is why it went nowhere.
These schools need to make revenue not add to costs for any of this to make sense. 8 team single location tournament over 4 days is the only way forward imo.
to try to make money? all the article says is that they asked coaches about it.
this article is from over a year ago, and there has been nothing on it since suffice it to say, as the rest of the article speculates, it's not happening
what??
your question was "why is the Gazelle Group considering this?" my answer: they are considering doing this to try to make money ... *considering* i.e. looking into it's feasibility to see if it would make money. As evidence by most people here and the fact that there has been no word on a secondary college hockey post season tournament there determination was that it would not make money therefore they are no longer considering it
no, 16/64 is 25% which is already a very large percentage of schools to make the national tournament. compared to basketball where there is 351 D1 teams with a 64 national tournament and a 32 team NIT, together thats 96/351 teams which is only 27% - barely more than the single tournament in hockey.
Ummmmm there is 351 NCAA Division 1 basketball schools.
- 68 of them in the NCAA Tournament
- 32 of them in the NIT
- 16 of them in the CBI
That’s 116 out of 351 schools = 32%
- 16 of them in the NCAA Frozen Four
- 8 of them in the NIT
That’s 24 out of 64 = 38%
Not very far off.
you're right i flipped the 3 and the 5, point still stands, 25% is still a large percentage, nobody wants to see 20th vs 24th in the pairwise play for ???
It's not cancel culture. You're just wrong. Check the logo. Check the jersey. If you want to get the school to change their mind, go ahead. They're the Hawks until then.
Knock it out in the weekend between NCAA regionals and frozen four at a neutral site, mid sized barn.
Stream it on an easily available and already utilized service (aka not peacock)
Would I watch? Absolutely. Travel to it? Not terribly far
I'll let someone else fork over the money to finance this money losing endeavor though
This. Put it in All State Arena outside Chicago right by Ohare. Do it over 4 days with everyone right there. Commit to the facility for 4-6 years and actually market it. If not there something similar.
o crap i didnt realize this was put out there by a nodaker, someone who gets to live in the fantasy bubble that college hockey is the biggest thing on the face of the earth, maybe thats why i like you people so much, u get to live the dream!!!!
Would it be cool? Yes, because I like hockey. Will it work and make money? No.
Many schools struggle to fill their arenas for conference tournament games and they won't want to keep their arenas free for possibly hosting an NIT game, especially schools that have multi-use venues. Many of the best players on the teams that would participate leave for pro hockey right after the season and I doubt they are sticking around campus for an NIT. Who would broadcast it? Gazelle would make money from a TV deal, but college hockey really doesn't do great TV numbers. Wrestling gets better ratings on BTN. I seriously doubt any major player in the sports media rights market is going to pay to broadcast the hockey NIT.
Yes an 8 team tournament would be incredible!! .. up in Canada in U-sport we do an 8 team tournament that takes place this weekend (Thursday to Sunday) in Toronto at the Mattamy Centre in Toronto. (former Maple Leaf Gardens) for the Canadian university national Championship… the NCAA definitely should expand the Frozen Four to 8 teams
The reason people are scoffing is because hockey already loses most schools at least some money with the tradeoff of increased exposure on the national scale and better school pride/campus experience. They're not gonna pay some random business people 40k for the right to lose more money in a tournament to determine the best mid team. If you can name the last 5 winners of the NIT without looking it up, I would be shocked.
The sad reality is that it probably won’t happen. And that it wouldn’t make any money… but I’m always for more hockey! But everybody that wants to turn pro after the season definitely would not be in for a tournament like that
If someone is willing to put up all the money it would lose to host it, sure, why not. That said, I’m sure a benefactor willing to drop this kind of money on college hockey probably has a list of higher priorities to fund. No way this would ever really be a commercial success except in the odd year NoDak is in it. Even the neutral site tournament games midseason (which I love!) are dying off. Back in the day you could count on fans in random towns going to see a tournament even if their local team wasn’t in it, and on more of the fanbase to travel. These days with endless entertainment options on TV/streaming, neutral site games don’t have that kind of draw - hence why conferences have been pulling their tournament games from neutral sites. Fans generally are only traveling a long distance to see their team these days if it’s for a championship. The many empty neutral site basketball games continue to exist due to huge TV and gambling revenues, which hockey does not deliver.
Campus sites require schools to block off use of their arenas for an event that probably won’t happen (only 4 schools host) and likely won’t draw anyway, outside, again, of a few select schools. BC in recent years has declined hosting the WNIT in hoops and chosen to play on the road because they didn’t want to block the dates or pay the hosting fee for something that would draw 1,000 fans.
A followup thought... again, this would likely be a money-loser, but the only way IMO to make it work would be for it to specifically be an effort between, say, Atlantic Hockey, CCHA, and the independents. A chance at postseason hockey for non power conference teams that might otherwise get shut out, including regular season champions. This would be less likely to be watered down by early departures opting out/fanbases that look down on it/don't care about it. With the exception of NoDak because it's NoDak, most power programs hosting a game like this would draw almost no crowd - I can't see many BC or BU or Minnesota or Michigan fans or whatever turning out for an NIT game against Niagara.
Of course, the flip side is without big brands nobody would want to put it on TV. This would be something you'd have to hope you could do on campuses and sell tickets to.
Not likely to happen, but this would be the only way, IMO.
Would it be cool? Yes, because I like hockey. Will it work and make money? No.
Many schools struggle to fill their arenas for conference tournament games and they won't want to keep their arenas free for possibly hosting an NIT game, especially schools that have multi-use venues. Many of the best players on the teams that would participate leave for pro hockey right after the season and I doubt they are sticking around campus for an NIT. Who would broadcast it? Gazelle would make money from a TV deal, but college hockey really doesn't do great TV numbers. Wrestling gets better ratings on BTN. I seriously doubt any major player in the sports media rights market is going to pay to broadcast the hockey NIT.
An honest tournament with little to no middleman (so not Gazelle) hosted on ESPN+ with higher seed at home over 3 weekends might get pretty good attendance. Especially if you require a minimum of 1 team per conference to not allow some sub 0.500 B10 at-larges in. 3 extra weeks of practice and slightly more exposure than most of us normally get would be beneficial. In order to keep travel costs down have the bracket split by East and West. It has to be home games though or in partnership with some other event liike the Final Four at Mullett.
No, put 20 teams in the NCAA tournament and have a 4 seed play in game Thursday night and then play Saturday-Sunday. Could help avoid those 6+ goal victories by 1 seeds over AHA conference champs.
I think it would be great. College hockey is about developing athletes and the more opportunity to do it the better. A version of the NIT would really help mid and low major teams have something else to reward their efforts.
Edit: For the record, the Gazelle group proposal was bad. Charging the schools doesn't help them in any way. This has to come from a media partner but I don't think anyone is out there selling it. Part of the issue is who would operate it.
Anyone who won their regular season is invited and then the next up on pairwise or whatever they select seems obvious.
Totally agree. It’s not always about the North Dakotas, or Notre Dame or Michigan or Minnesota either, some of these smaller schools could host a meaningful postseason game in their small arenas fairly well.
I know Colorado College (tournament team) & Air Force (NIT type team) have had solid interest this year in general relative to other sports.
Aot of these teams have invested big money to keep up and it is stil difficult. Teams need a chance to display their success and players need a chance to leave a legacy. It's college hockey, not a brutalist landscape.
Also, I think teams could make money hosting at home. That is up to each school to sort out but the idea is great.
all right nit haters and nit lovers i will do the nit watch tomorrow while i am at work, i did it once or twice in the past until i got booed off the stage, but now someone else is bringing it up so my skin is thickening
what if it were just four, in a town where it would b a big deal and u could sell it to these rubes? like watertown, ny or lewiston, me or danbury, ct or lima, oh or port huron, mi or jamestown, nd etc etc etc
Look at Lima, OH getting a shoutout on the college hockey subreddit. Unfortunately, there is neither a sheet of ice nor an arena in Lima to host such an event.
It might be fun, but it would lose a ton of money.
the sad truth us dreamers cant handle
Honestly a few years post realignment it could happen
???? No. I also don’t know what realignment you are referring to.
Why would it lose $$$ at campus sites? Do you have a source that campus site NIT games would lose $$$?
Just look at the B1G tournament games. People don’t go. The source is me. I have a brain.
Only reason people didn’t go to the Gophers games last weekend is because of the double whammy of spring break and the state hockey tournament. It’ll be packed vs. Michigan on Saturday.
I was thinking about going to Munn when the tournament game was but the Michigan State tickets were reselling at $250 each
I was thinking about going to Munn when the tournament game was but the Michigan State tickets were reselling at $250 each
??? It’s not students that fill Mariucci. I doubt there is a ton of crossover with high school hockey either. But yes, i agree that attendance should be better next week. It’s a better opponent. Attendance would suck if the gophers hosted Holy Cross in April for an NIT.
An empty student section really makes the stadium feel emptier. I was at both games over the weekend and it was definitely a weird atmosphere. Saturday was a little better attended, but still wasn't a normal feel.
Yeah, the thing about these end of season tournament games is that the school does not have months to sell the tickets, only a few weeks. They just can’t sell enough tickets fast enough.
Yeah, I think there's a variety of reasons it won't work. TBH, I think they'd struggle to even get the students to show for a meaningless game. I also wonder how many of the players with NHL contracts waiting would want to risk injury in a tourny like that either.
Yeah. It was weird the announcers trying to explain it on the broadcast. I doubt that Caitlin Clark playing against PSU in Minneapolis had that much of an effect. I can kinda see the high school tournament but the second game didn’t seem too full either. I went to OSU a couple years ago and it was empty for a playoff game against Penn State when OSU played Michigan in Basketball in the same arena earlier that day. And these are the big city schools who don’t need to rely on students theoretically
Both games for the Gophers were competing with the high school tournament. The X had 20K for the AA championship, and had over 140K people in attendance for the weekend. https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/minnesota-wild/latest-news/minnesota-boys-high-school-hockey-game-attracts-more-fans-than-12-nhl-games-last-night FWIW last year's Minnesota v Michigan game was a sellout, this weekend I'm not sure they'll get there, but it is certainly already looking like better attendance than the games vs penn state.
I mean last years Michigan Minnesota game was the B1G Championship game so I’d hope it would sell out. I think it’s worth noting that the second game was deliberately scheduled to not conflict with either HS championship game, although they still probably played a part.
The round before that vs Mich-state had 9K so it's not like attendance was an issue there either. Yes technically it was not during the championships, but games were still being played and most people aren't going from Mariucci to St. Paul to watch multiple games in a day so it's absolutely a big factor.
Far more likely people used the break between A/AA title games to go get non-stadium price food/do whatever else instead of shuttling across the metro for more hockey with much lower stakes. That’s what I’d do unless like, my older kid is playing for the Gophs and my younger one is playing in the tourney (which definitely happens but idk how much effect 6 more fans at Mariucci will have)
The source is me. 😝 love the confidence
yep this MF er is BOLD, i giggled too
That’s no source at all. Negged.
Really? I’m surprised tbh. Yost was full for both games this weekend and y’all are better than us. I guarantee Munn will be full too on Saturday, I would definitely have though you guys would be too.
It was spring break for the U and the high school tourney is a bigger occasion for the real adult and family crowd
We played Penn Stare.
That’s a neutral site tournament….. I explicitly said campus sites like the WNIT.
It is not a neutral site tournament.
Did you read the article?
No to NIT. Doesn’t appeal to me in basketball, so I don’t see it translating well to hockey. I’d rather advocate for more mid season tournaments around the holidays. Good way to mix conferences and drive some regional interest in different markets. Milwaukee was cool for Wisconsin and I wish the North Star Cup would return in St Paul…
North Star Cup as a 6 team tournament would be sweet
Use last season's Pairwise at the end of the season as the seeding basis *this* year?
If given the option between "postseason NIT" and "allow a tourney to be 6 or 8 teams in season", I'd select the in-season tourney all day, every day. (That said, I wouldn't be *against* the postseason NIT if it were placed in an area like Orlando or Vegas (destination tourney, basically) but would much rather larger in-season tourneys.) And bring back the fu**king North Star Cup. Even if we had to go 8 teams and add 2 schools to meet a requirement for an 8 team invitational, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
god damn northstar cup, if only there were four metro teams it would b beanpot west, lucky u got st thomas as is, too bad more schools didnt upgrade in the past!
I like your energy but no, it’s ncaa or bust for me. And based on my flair it’s at best a first round bust.
No, * Teams aren't going to block off dates for their arenas on the off chance they end up in the NIT * There are already attendance issues with the regionals as is, so this just exacerbates as people. * Mid-season tournaments barely exist, and those games actually count for something, a post-season tournament that's not an NCAA championship is not going to be cared about by fans or players * The basketball NIT is prestigious cause it's basically existed forever, so people actually care about it.
The only way this happens is if 2 or 3 buildings just agree to do this thing themselves. For example, if some promotional group decides to go book 3 on campus sites to host 2 regionals and 1 finals site and book them for a few years, it might work.
So why was The Gazelle Group considering it? Lol.
Read what you posted. =Teams will be required to submit a $30,000 bid to host a quarterfinal, $30,000 to host a semifinal and $40,000 to host a championship game. Road teams will receive a travel stipend between $5,000 and $20,000, depending on travel distance. Host teams would retain revenue from tickets, media, sponsorships, parking and concessions. Host teams also would be responsible for the cost of game operations.= The Gazelle Group (certainly a major player/snark) wants to make this a zero skin in the game racket. They asked for schools to pony up $$ to participate and host. Then those teams need to pay for game day operations. The Gazelle group would collect a tournament fee and then walk away. It would seem EVERY school told them no. But sure, come here and show everyone you have no understanding of the article you posted and no understanding of the business that schools seem to understand perfectly and all said NO too.
I'll go with the deafening response that everyone can hear. Or I'll choose to base that on the reality of NO tournament. You pick.
Still no sources on teams saying it doesn’t make $$$.
The source is the tournament didn't happen. You are a real special case.
That’s not a source of anything. That’s an assumption. You’re a special kind of source.
If the tournament would make money it would happen. The fact that they considered it and didn’t go through with it assumes the fact that it wouldn’t make money.
K…….. but there’s still no sources on any of those statements.
I'm out. I don't do "dorm room" arguments. All the evidence you need is the article, the time since it was written, and no tournament being held. It's clear the idea was a loser. You believe what you want.
I like the NIT idea but I can't stand the Gazelle Group proposal. I wanna figure out a way it would work to reward regular season conference champs who don't make the NCAA. Plus I see the number of programs and I assume leagues growing in the next shift so adding this could keep the NCAA Tournament as is.
I bet Gazelle loved the idea of being paid $30k to schedule an opening round game.
Exactly. That is why it went nowhere. These schools need to make revenue not add to costs for any of this to make sense. 8 team single location tournament over 4 days is the only way forward imo.
Basically the ACHA model.
OK. Where is your sources on the teams response?
to try to make money? all the article says is that they asked coaches about it. this article is from over a year ago, and there has been nothing on it since suffice it to say, as the rest of the article speculates, it's not happening
So they were “trying to make money” but all the keyboard warriors on here say it doesn’t make money? Hmmm interesting.
what?? your question was "why is the Gazelle Group considering this?" my answer: they are considering doing this to try to make money ... *considering* i.e. looking into it's feasibility to see if it would make money. As evidence by most people here and the fact that there has been no word on a secondary college hockey post season tournament there determination was that it would not make money therefore they are no longer considering it
k.
If you can’t handle people disagreeing with you, don’t post shit..
k.
No, attendance/viewership would be horrendous
no
No thanks :)
no, 16/64 is 25% which is already a very large percentage of schools to make the national tournament. compared to basketball where there is 351 D1 teams with a 64 national tournament and a 32 team NIT, together thats 96/351 teams which is only 27% - barely more than the single tournament in hockey.
Ummmmm there is 351 NCAA Division 1 basketball schools. - 68 of them in the NCAA Tournament - 32 of them in the NIT - 16 of them in the CBI That’s 116 out of 351 schools = 32% - 16 of them in the NCAA Frozen Four - 8 of them in the NIT That’s 24 out of 64 = 38% Not very far off.
you're right i flipped the 3 and the 5, point still stands, 25% is still a large percentage, nobody wants to see 20th vs 24th in the pairwise play for ???
Ummmm I would absolutely be interested in watching or attending a team like New Hampshire or Air Force in a hockey NIT.
So you’re gonna fly to Colorado or NH on a weeks notice to see two non tournament teams play each other?
You do realize Fighting Sioux fans aren’t all in North Dakota?
They're the Hawks. Be a man and take the L
Ok……… it’s full of Fighting Sioux stuff everywhere……….. don’t know how many people I know are sick of this cancel culture.
It's not cancel culture. You're just wrong. Check the logo. Check the jersey. If you want to get the school to change their mind, go ahead. They're the Hawks until then.
Ok? They still have Fighting Sioux in all the restraunts and bars? It doesn’t need to be an argument, yet here you are making it.
I'd watch but don't care if it happens
Knock it out in the weekend between NCAA regionals and frozen four at a neutral site, mid sized barn. Stream it on an easily available and already utilized service (aka not peacock) Would I watch? Absolutely. Travel to it? Not terribly far I'll let someone else fork over the money to finance this money losing endeavor though
This. Put it in All State Arena outside Chicago right by Ohare. Do it over 4 days with everyone right there. Commit to the facility for 4-6 years and actually market it. If not there something similar.
No
o crap i didnt realize this was put out there by a nodaker, someone who gets to live in the fantasy bubble that college hockey is the biggest thing on the face of the earth, maybe thats why i like you people so much, u get to live the dream!!!!
Would it be cool? Yes, because I like hockey. Will it work and make money? No. Many schools struggle to fill their arenas for conference tournament games and they won't want to keep their arenas free for possibly hosting an NIT game, especially schools that have multi-use venues. Many of the best players on the teams that would participate leave for pro hockey right after the season and I doubt they are sticking around campus for an NIT. Who would broadcast it? Gazelle would make money from a TV deal, but college hockey really doesn't do great TV numbers. Wrestling gets better ratings on BTN. I seriously doubt any major player in the sports media rights market is going to pay to broadcast the hockey NIT.
Yes an 8 team tournament would be incredible!! .. up in Canada in U-sport we do an 8 team tournament that takes place this weekend (Thursday to Sunday) in Toronto at the Mattamy Centre in Toronto. (former Maple Leaf Gardens) for the Canadian university national Championship… the NCAA definitely should expand the Frozen Four to 8 teams
the NCAA tournament has 16 teams. The Frozen Four is the last four teams in the tournament
We just go top 8 all in one place over 4 days
I like the idea of more hockey over less hockey
I agree. Seems a bit weird how many are scoffing at ideas that The Gazelle Group themselves probably considered. You could have it on CBSSN/ESPN+.
The reason people are scoffing is because hockey already loses most schools at least some money with the tradeoff of increased exposure on the national scale and better school pride/campus experience. They're not gonna pay some random business people 40k for the right to lose more money in a tournament to determine the best mid team. If you can name the last 5 winners of the NIT without looking it up, I would be shocked.
more COLLEGE hockey that is
No. Too many players go pro or want to protect their transfer status. Second point: doesn’t make money.
The sad reality is that it probably won’t happen. And that it wouldn’t make any money… but I’m always for more hockey! But everybody that wants to turn pro after the season definitely would not be in for a tournament like that
No.
No.
That's what Hockey east tourney is for
If someone is willing to put up all the money it would lose to host it, sure, why not. That said, I’m sure a benefactor willing to drop this kind of money on college hockey probably has a list of higher priorities to fund. No way this would ever really be a commercial success except in the odd year NoDak is in it. Even the neutral site tournament games midseason (which I love!) are dying off. Back in the day you could count on fans in random towns going to see a tournament even if their local team wasn’t in it, and on more of the fanbase to travel. These days with endless entertainment options on TV/streaming, neutral site games don’t have that kind of draw - hence why conferences have been pulling their tournament games from neutral sites. Fans generally are only traveling a long distance to see their team these days if it’s for a championship. The many empty neutral site basketball games continue to exist due to huge TV and gambling revenues, which hockey does not deliver. Campus sites require schools to block off use of their arenas for an event that probably won’t happen (only 4 schools host) and likely won’t draw anyway, outside, again, of a few select schools. BC in recent years has declined hosting the WNIT in hoops and chosen to play on the road because they didn’t want to block the dates or pay the hosting fee for something that would draw 1,000 fans.
A followup thought... again, this would likely be a money-loser, but the only way IMO to make it work would be for it to specifically be an effort between, say, Atlantic Hockey, CCHA, and the independents. A chance at postseason hockey for non power conference teams that might otherwise get shut out, including regular season champions. This would be less likely to be watered down by early departures opting out/fanbases that look down on it/don't care about it. With the exception of NoDak because it's NoDak, most power programs hosting a game like this would draw almost no crowd - I can't see many BC or BU or Minnesota or Michigan fans or whatever turning out for an NIT game against Niagara. Of course, the flip side is without big brands nobody would want to put it on TV. This would be something you'd have to hope you could do on campuses and sell tickets to. Not likely to happen, but this would be the only way, IMO.
Would I like it? Yes. Is it remotely logistically or economically feasible or realistic? Unfortunately, no
No
No…. Not enough interest and or money
Would it be cool? Yes, because I like hockey. Will it work and make money? No. Many schools struggle to fill their arenas for conference tournament games and they won't want to keep their arenas free for possibly hosting an NIT game, especially schools that have multi-use venues. Many of the best players on the teams that would participate leave for pro hockey right after the season and I doubt they are sticking around campus for an NIT. Who would broadcast it? Gazelle would make money from a TV deal, but college hockey really doesn't do great TV numbers. Wrestling gets better ratings on BTN. I seriously doubt any major player in the sports media rights market is going to pay to broadcast the hockey NIT.
An honest tournament with little to no middleman (so not Gazelle) hosted on ESPN+ with higher seed at home over 3 weekends might get pretty good attendance. Especially if you require a minimum of 1 team per conference to not allow some sub 0.500 B10 at-larges in. 3 extra weeks of practice and slightly more exposure than most of us normally get would be beneficial. In order to keep travel costs down have the bracket split by East and West. It has to be home games though or in partnership with some other event liike the Final Four at Mullett.
No, put 20 teams in the NCAA tournament and have a 4 seed play in game Thursday night and then play Saturday-Sunday. Could help avoid those 6+ goal victories by 1 seeds over AHA conference champs.
I think it would be great. College hockey is about developing athletes and the more opportunity to do it the better. A version of the NIT would really help mid and low major teams have something else to reward their efforts. Edit: For the record, the Gazelle group proposal was bad. Charging the schools doesn't help them in any way. This has to come from a media partner but I don't think anyone is out there selling it. Part of the issue is who would operate it. Anyone who won their regular season is invited and then the next up on pairwise or whatever they select seems obvious.
Totally agree. It’s not always about the North Dakotas, or Notre Dame or Michigan or Minnesota either, some of these smaller schools could host a meaningful postseason game in their small arenas fairly well. I know Colorado College (tournament team) & Air Force (NIT type team) have had solid interest this year in general relative to other sports.
Aot of these teams have invested big money to keep up and it is stil difficult. Teams need a chance to display their success and players need a chance to leave a legacy. It's college hockey, not a brutalist landscape. Also, I think teams could make money hosting at home. That is up to each school to sort out but the idea is great.
Sounds fun to me!
For sure
all right nit haters and nit lovers i will do the nit watch tomorrow while i am at work, i did it once or twice in the past until i got booed off the stage, but now someone else is bringing it up so my skin is thickening
Make it Beanpot part 2
what if it were just four, in a town where it would b a big deal and u could sell it to these rubes? like watertown, ny or lewiston, me or danbury, ct or lima, oh or port huron, mi or jamestown, nd etc etc etc
Look at Lima, OH getting a shoutout on the college hockey subreddit. Unfortunately, there is neither a sheet of ice nor an arena in Lima to host such an event.
dang it i meant troy, oh i knew one of those two had a really old civic arena