Local Broadcasting/Media

That's wonderful; thank you for posting. Yeah, the years WCCO had the Tournament (1983-1991) really was the "Golden Era" for broadcasting. Top notch talent in all areas of production and presentation. And Chris Cuthbert is an absolutely outstanding play-by-play announcer. What great memories.

https://twitter.com/mattdelong/status/1486021866003349514

I've been listening to Cities 97 for the first in a long time this morning. I have an idea for their new slogan. "Cities 97...we play mostly Adele and Taylor Swift".

You could change the artists and say that for just about any station in town. Even the 2 "Oldies" stations do this. They have thousands of songs from over 2 decades to choose from, but they play the same 50 songs over and over.

Which is why Pandora and Spotify rule the airwaves pretty much now. I've gone that route after I got a new pickup for work that my phone connects with automatically when I get in, my last truck was a '07 GMC Sierra...it didn't have bluetooth.

I used to refer to KS95 as "All Katy Perry all the time"

It used to be such a good station…..

:biggrin2: I’m cracking up over the idea that “oldies” is just 2 decades ago. Oh Hockey Bum I’m depressed now at the thought of what that makes me!!

It's why I like The Current at work. At least it is a variety of anything and everything.

50's on 5 on Sirius/XM is your go to? :biggrin2:

I remember when I first heard Alice in Chains on a "classic" rock station...my first thought was I know I'm older but I'm not "grunge is classic rock" old!

50s! How old do you think I am? I’ll admit I’m edging out of the “vintage” category and coming dangerously close to “ antique”, but I’m a 70s child so :censored: off.

Kelly Red wrote:

50s! How old do you think I am? I’ll admit I’m edging out of the “vintage” category and coming dangerously close to “ antique”, but I’m a 70s child so :censored: off.

Could not resist a little Gen X to Gen X :poke:

:drinks2:

BARELY Gen-X

When I had my free trial of XM, the 50s station was in the rotation. Great songs.

Pat the rat was on KFAN this morning talking Gopher hockey, saying the seat donation fees and the outrageous ticket prices are the main reason they can not get a full crowd at Mariucci

SMH...

They are AVERAGING 2500-3000 no shows a game. These are SOLD tickets and season ticket holders that have their tickets bought and paid for. Just look at this past weekend. They place looked empty again. Yet 7824 tickets were sold for Friday and 8305 for Saturday.

What in the hell is the U supposed to do when they have THAT many people not showing up for tickets they paid for?

It's the ticket prices behind not selling out.

It's the opponents, inconsistent play, and knowing the crowd/atmosphere will be crappy (partially because of the above) that keeps people from heading to the game that have tickets. If I know my neighbors won't be there and it'll feel like a morgue, I'm less inclined to go, too.

Skipping games is a symptom of eventually dropping season tickets. I think you'll see a lot of drops after this year.

If you are not going... Stop getting tickets or season tickets. It is just that simple.

The U cannot re-sell 2500-3000 seats a game they have already sold. Get rid of your damn tickets so they CAN sell them.

Yeah, people want to blame the U - and they should take their share of it - but there has been a slow decline in fan interest for college hockey. It's not just here. Every time I tune in for away games it's obvious. There's not too many other goods or services that one would pay for and not use, but college hockey seems to be one of them.

I think people keep rubber stamping their season tickets like they do their monthly health club fees. In the back of their minds, they have it in their heads they'll be back and don't want to lose their seats.

It doesn't help that Minnesota keeps losing against in-state teams and rivals.

This is a moot point. They can't sell the tickets they have available in the cheapest sections. If those sections were sold out with single game tickets you could point at there being demand for seats but none available.

I seriously doubt the season tickets drop more this year than we have in previous years. The no-show problem is NOT NEW. It's also NOT due to the B1G as it goes back to the WCHA days.

I didn't say more. I said a lot. Like the same amount that dropped before this year.

Also, no shows were not nearly as bad in the WCHA.

Please drop your season tickets. You clearly are no longer a fan of this team.

I dropped club room season tickets and only bought tickets for UMD/SCSU/uw/UM this year. Almost my whole row in the club room dropped this year.

I just do not understand you at all. Yes there are some negatives with the U an how they handle things. But your overall attitude about this team makes the U look like they are Fred Rogers positive in comparison. Seriously... It's really sad.

Pat knows he's telling only part of the story.

Gopher hockey today is very boring. It's a vanilla, limited contact, low aggression version of what a lot of the ticket holding, non-attendees are rejecting by not bothering to show up. Pat played at a time when the Gopher hockey teams wore the black hats in college hockey. The teams Pat played on were carrying on that proud tradition. Those teams played fast, they played tough, and they didn't take any crap from anybody. Ever. The stands were always packed, the atmosphere at the rink was intense. It was showtime every Friday and Saturday night.

Pat "The Rat" was an attraction. He was a star, he wore the biggest black hat, and he gave the people what they wanted. He was relentless, he brought intensity. He generated excitement, scored great goals, had a winning attitude and was chippy. I miss the chippiness of an intense Gopher hockey game.

Never a dull moment back then in the old Barn. By contrast, at Mariucci Arena today, it's always a dull moment. :ddown:

A change in the price of admission won't fix that.

Good point. Gophers are soft and have been for a very long time. If they start hitting people maybe they would see that combining that with their skill results in very good things.

I disagree that hitting and more violence in games is the answer.

That is how you separate your opponent from the puck, slow them down, make them a little sore and question trying fancy things by getting in their head...

Hockey is not soccer.

What don’t you understand? Seems to me that he misses the glory days when the team was dominant and the building had a better atmosphere. Due to many years of average hockey he now only buys seats against premium opponents and follows the rest on tv. You are allowed to not be satisfied with the status quo and still be a fan of the program.

The best way to inspire change is with your wallet and reaching out to the “U” to voice concerns, and it seems he’s done both.

People forget that those rough and tough teams Pat was on also didn’t bring home an NCAA Championship

Bingo. I still watch basically every second of every game. But I wasn't deriving the value from those tickets anymore. I can spend that chunk of money elsewhere (travel, good food, other hobbies). Add to that the fact I was able to attend a game against Notre Dame for free just by watching out on this message board...

Hockey itself is alot more boring than it used to be due to style changes. It bugs me when a road coach states that they did not need to put on a show. Well, yes you do because people are losing interest in the sport and moving on.

While this is true there has only been two era's in these many long years that have.

The stands were full, there was a waiting list for tickets, and the Barn on game night was exciting and was THE place to be.

Now its sparse crowds, no waiting list, a morgue like atmosphere at Mariucci and it hasn't been the place to be for a long, long time.

Your comments seem dismissive and contrived in such a way to change the narrative. Physical intensity and "chippiness" are different from "violence." As for hitting, this isn't women's hockey. Hitting, or, if you will, checking, is part of the men's game. It's permitted and an effective tool for separating an opponent from the puck.

I remember watching Johnny Pohl, for example. He was a player the team counted on for scoring goals, but when they were a little flat and needed a lift, he'd spend an entire shift or two just flying around hitting people. He wasn't even looking for the puck. Players like Foligno on the Wild and even a superstar like Kaprisov understand how this level of intensity and physical play can lift a team from its slumber.

I agree with 5 O.T. that, even if you think the comparison to yesteryear falls short of persuasive, this style of play is more fun to watch and wins more games.

Lot of back in my day we walked uphill in a blizzard both ways to school energy in here...

Let's go back to what I was talking about here. The "MAIN' reason that Mariucci is empty is NOT ticket prices and seat donation fees like Pat is saying. It is PART of the problem, but certainly not the MAIN problem.

There are like 15 main problems and price is one of them. Identifying a single primary one is probably not possible.

why so mean to bonin free speech

Just telling the truth...

The no-shows are a huge problem and evidently the U isn't in the mood to try to find out why they are having a couple thousand of those every game. I imagine if you polled those ticket holders you would get tens or hundreds of different reasons, not excuses, why they aren't showing up to the games. To me, and this in my opinion only though I've seen it posted here many times as well, people are just too damn busy and overschedule themselves. Whether it's their kids, their family & friends, or work people are just spreading themselves out. Also, let's face facts some people realigned their priorities during the past two years.

Bonin21,

You bitch about attendance over and over but you yourself said you only bought tickets to six games this year. Seems to me you're part of the attendance problem.

It also sells more tickets and gives fans of the team lots of good reasons to actually show up at the rink and enthusiastically support the team.

It's fair to say that. I held out as long as I could but the lack of atmosphere could no longer be overcome by the simple joy of being in the arena (even if empty) for the game over watching on TV.

My wife had an interesting theory with the lack of attendance. She is a big gopher fan but not necessarily a hockey fan.

She doesn't blame it on ticket prices, the B1G, or the lack of a band. She does appreciate the beer availability for sure though.

She noted that we started seeing the drop in attendance when the iPhone became ubiquitous-- her theory being that the ability of having social media in our hands means we don't need to go to "the event" in order to be part of it. Thus, going to the game isn't a big draw anymore because I don't need to go to be seen (as a student) or to participate (as a corpie).

This explains why we are seeing this attendance issue not just here, but pretty much everywhere-- including Alabama and Michigan football. It just means athletic departments have not caught up with how we consume our entertainment yet, and have not figured out how to leverage the social media to bring folks into the arena as part of the cause.

If anyone has a sure fire way to figure it out, I think they would be worth billions, however.

The performance, the atmosphere (lack of) helped the decision, but the lack of desire to go near Minneapolis played a huge part in my decision to stop.

A consistently winning product that dominates games more often than not is the key. This program has done this with a bit more grit (Herbie into Woog) and with a bit more finesse (early Don teams). They've had very little of either version from the end of tDon into the current regime.

Yes that is a somewhat simplistic review of these eras (earlier teams absolutely had offensive talent) and early Don teams had players that wouldn't take sh*t.

But the overall point is they've been far too average too often and the allure has significantly dropped overall.

I'm not a MPLS guy either but come on... You're safe hopping off 280 or 35W, driving up University for five minutes from either direction, and parking in Lot 37 for a few hours before heading home.

Malcolm Yards has become my pregame spot and I don't feel any safety concerns in that district either.