Official 2006-2007 College Hockey Thread

[Dudd]

Irish hockey, top 5!

[MicroBob]

Hadn't seen this thread until now.

#3 rated Miami inproved to 11-4 by scratchig past St. Lawrence 4-3.

I grew up watching Miami hockey and went to all the home-games when I was a kid.
Later, I was the play-by-play announcer for the student-radio and eventually for the main-flagship station for several years.

So I've been to several hundered college-hockey games and have been to probably 25 or more different arena (including all in Miami's conference of course, the CCHA).

[MicroBob]

Bob's list of best/favorite arenas/atmospheres that he's been to:

1. Michigan
2. Maine
3. Miami
4. Nebraska-Omaha
5. New Hampshire
6. Michigan State
7. Old Northern Michigan arena

Least favorite:

1. Bemidji St., Minn
2. Notre Dame (seriously, that place sucks)
3. Old Ohio State arena
4. Former Kent State arena
5. Providence (boring in every way)
6. Ferris State


Bob has unfortunately not been to some of the great college-hockey venues at Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Harvard, Cornell, BU or BC.

[damaniac]

Notre Dame doing well? Ugh, this means no more 8-0 wins where we have multiple fights with 5 people from each team sent to the box. One game there were 8 Irish and 5 Wolverines in the box at the same time. Those were the good old days. Now I have to watch well-played competitive hockey games.

[Dudd]

[ QUOTE ]
Least favorite:

1. Bemidji St., Minn
2. Notre Dame (seriously, that place sucks)


[/ QUOTE ]

Wait, someone has a worse arena than ND's? What do they play on, a pond?

[MrFeelNothin]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Least favorite:

1. Bemidji St., Minn
2. Notre Dame (seriously, that place sucks)


[/ QUOTE ]

Wait, someone has a worse arena than ND's? What do they play on, a pond?

[/ QUOTE ]

Ha, I went to summer hockey camp in Bemidji every year as a kid. They've probably made improvements since they went D1, but at the time it wasn't much more than your standard community arena.

They had tunnels connecting all the school buildings though including the arena, I thought that was pretty cool.

[MrFeelNothin]

Mariucci is classy in every way you should definitely check it out, but I prefer the raucous, college-feel of SCSU.

At least, when they were good and MN was playing there it was crazy.

Oh, and I really want to see North Dakota's new arena. My buddy's dad played there back in the day and he went up there with my dad for the opening. They got the full behind-the-scenes tour, box seats, etc. Supposedly amazing.

[jgunnip]

Yost Pwns. Go Blue beat the Gophers!

[MrFeelNothin]

Huge game tonight between possibly the best two teams in the country.

Yeeeeaaaah Gophers! Rah!

[MicroBob]

we travelled to Bemidji early in their first season as D1.

Probably 99 or so?? Not sure.
Agreed they may have improved that place since then but when we were there it was pretty lousy.


they are the beavers and their cheerleaders and student support section wear Beaver Fever t-shirts.
Our equipment manager and trainer thought it was hilarious and they spent the whole weekend trying to track down Beaver Fever t-shirts for themselves.

Trust me, that place is definitely worse than Notre Dame's weird set-up and temp bleachers.
The way ND does it is just so freaking odd.
Especially when there are intramural basketball games going on right behind the hockey game which I always found kind of funny. Not sure if they still do that though.


However, I really should have rated OSU's old place worse than all of them.
That place was tiny (capacity 1,100 I think) and had all wooden rickety bleachers.
Only 7 or 8 rows of bleachers along the length of the ice and about 15 rows or so at one end where the band would be.

That place was REALLY cold. Couldn't feel my toes a couple times and you could always see your breath.
Zamboni door would open directly from the outside and the whole place would groan in agony and then scurry for the lobby to get some coffee.


The ice was also too small (super-small neutral-zone so visiting teams always had trouble adjusting and would get whistled for offside over and over).


The locker-rooms were DONWSTAIRS and THROUGH the lobby which was kind of a pain for the players to try to negotiate.
That's where the bathrooms were as well.
So between periods you would be standing there taking a whiz
right next to one of the players.

I know it's hard to believe if you've only been to ND's crappy arena, but trust me, the facility at OSU was WAY worse than Notre Dame's.

I rated it not quite as bad on my list just because I thought it had an odd 'should be self-imploded' charm about it.



I've been to St. Cloud as well and agree the fans there are pretty good.
Miami won both games when I was there so I didn't see them at their best like when they play the Gophers or something.


Nebraska-Omaha's arena is kind of boring. But the fans are loud, awesome, and sometimes nuts.
Probably louder than michigan I think.