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Old 02-01-2011, 09:56 AM
 
256 posts, read 586,305 times
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It's not about "deserving" hockey, it is just rather odd to have hockey played it the south, were aside from NHL teams, there is little hockey. It's like having Mardis Gras in Minnesota. The NFL is a poor example, football is played all over the country, and the first intercollegiate college football game was played betwen Rutgers and Princeton. For ages, the Ivy League was dominant. Football is a sport whose roots are solidly in the north.
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Old 02-01-2011, 10:10 AM
 
Location: Midwest
1,283 posts, read 2,227,629 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by moving123456 View Post
I guess not all of the sunbelt teams are doing as bad as I originally thought for attendance.

Phoenix and Atlanta have the lowest average attendance for sunbelt teams, but both are slightly ahead of the NY Islanders which has the lowest overall.
Yeah - New York has THREE hockey teams in their Metro Area (the Devils play in Newark, just a couple miles outside of Manhattan) and the combination of the Islanders not being that great and playing on Long Island work against them. There is very little reason for someone who lives in the city to voluntarily go to Long Island, even if they have a different hockey team there.

It takes a lot for a Metro Area to support two teams from the same sport - you're really talking about cities the size L.A., Chicago, and New York, which Minneapolis just doesn't fall into. I suppose an inspiration might be the Bay Area hosting two baseball teams, or even Washington DC and Baltimore each having their own baseball and football teams. If the Twin Cities were going to have an extra team of any sport, hockey would make the most sense, I suppose. But...not that I follow the NHL....but if they are still dealing with popularity and financial problems, I doubt the league would want to invest in another team in the Twin Cities area, as it would be a big gamble at best, particularly with other sizable cities without any teams.
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Old 02-01-2011, 10:11 AM
 
455 posts, read 638,543 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rcsteiner View Post
Football is played by kids all over the country, while youth hockey is either very limited or not played at all in some parts of the south. Minnesota has what, five Division I men's hockey teams in the state now? (UMN, UMD, SCSU, Mankato, Bemidji), and also exports a lot of players to other colleges.

Wiht regard to football: remember that UMD (University of MN Duluth) has won the Division II championship two of the past three years, and conferences like the Big Ten have a very long traditional on good football teams. It isn't like we don't have quality football programs in the northern US.
So Minnesota has five D1 hockey teams and ONE D1 football team (?). You live in Atlanta now--how many D1 football teams are in Georgia? Alabama? Tennessee? South Carolina? Florida? Texas? And you want to talk about exporting players? If you are going to maintain that the hockey teams should all be up North, your reasoning is not convincing me that the NFL teams should not all move to the South.

Yes, there is a much stronger youth hockey presence in the Twin Cities than where I currently live. But last year's Hobey Baker winner hails from my southern hometown. I have only been to NHL games in two arenas--Xcel and the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. It's true that the Wild fill more seats on average than the Preds (and are admittedly a worse team), but anybody who has been to a sporting event knows that just because the Wild "sell out" does not mean that they fill all the seats. For a metro area that is more than twice the size of Nashville's and supposedly the hockey mecca of the US, I don't think the attendance is all that more impressive (according to the ESPN stats somebody linked, the Wild draw an average of 17,700 and the Preds draw 16,000).
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Old 02-01-2011, 11:14 AM
 
Location: MN
3,971 posts, read 9,682,112 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by southernsmoke View Post
So Minnesota has five D1 hockey teams and ONE D1 football team (?). You live in Atlanta now--how many D1 football teams are in Georgia? Alabama? Tennessee? South Carolina? Florida? Texas? And you want to talk about exporting players? If you are going to maintain that the hockey teams should all be up North, your reasoning is not convincing me that the NFL teams should not all move to the South.

Yes, there is a much stronger youth hockey presence in the Twin Cities than where I currently live. But last year's Hobey Baker winner hails from my southern hometown. I have only been to NHL games in two arenas--Xcel and the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. It's true that the Wild fill more seats on average than the Preds (and are admittedly a worse team), but anybody who has been to a sporting event knows that just because the Wild "sell out" does not mean that they fill all the seats. For a metro area that is more than twice the size of Nashville's and supposedly the hockey mecca of the US, I don't think the attendance is all that more impressive (according to the ESPN stats somebody linked, the Wild draw an average of 17,700 and the Preds draw 16,000).

It's about grass-roots dude. 100% of my friends can ice skate. We go up to local rinks and play pick up games a couple days a week. We're in our mid 20's. Did any of us play organized hockey? Heck no. I stopped when I was 12. But I still can skate, and play hockey puck handle, know the in's and out's of hockey.

Now you give me a group of mid 20s dudes in Atlanta, and show me their skating and puck handling abilities.

Minnesotans, for the most part, grew up on skates, or at least 'went skating' a few times as kids. It's just what we do in the Winter.

By not having winters, accessibility to ice ponds or outdoor rinks is impossible. So, kids don't grow up learning, obsessing or following hockey.

So by default, the people in the stands at the Xcel are probably more passionate about hockey and more hockey intelligent...
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Old 02-01-2011, 11:16 AM
 
Location: MN
3,971 posts, read 9,682,112 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rcsteiner View Post
They need to bring back the comet puck effect.
LOL!

I forgot about that!!!

But I did just read an article about sports on Television, and Hockey always falls at the bottom, behind golf, in terms of entertainment. But it's true, hockey is hard to watch on TV, with the White Backdrop, you never get an understanding of how fast the game is until you're there in person.

NFL is so fast, but the sideline cameras can give you the insight as to how fast they are
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Old 02-01-2011, 12:14 PM
 
455 posts, read 638,543 times
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I think this quote (from the last link that you posted) has a lot to it:

Quote:
Thrashers fan Jere Smith sums up the challenge in Atlanta this way. His son plays on a youth hockey team coached by a man from Edmonton.

“I’ve never seen him not wearing an Oilers T-shirt,” said Smith, a 42-year-old attorney born in Florida. “Somehow we have to make that Edmonton guy a Thrashers guy.”

It's difficult to bring a new sport to a city and then have a lot of people hesitant to embrace the team because of previous fan loyalties, etc. I think that it is premature (at best) to discount NHL teams in the sun belt as failures. If you want to see the Thrashers have the same fan support as the Blackhawks (which may never happen to that degree, considering the history of the Blackhawks franchise), you have to give Atlanta a chance for a generation to grow up with the Thrashers as the hometown team. (I don't know the dynamics of the Thrashers fan base at all--just using them as an example.)
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Old 02-01-2011, 12:30 PM
 
Location: MN
3,971 posts, read 9,682,112 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by southernsmoke View Post
I think this quote (from the last link that you posted) has a lot to it:




It's difficult to bring a new sport to a city and then have a lot of people hesitant to embrace the team because of previous fan loyalties, etc. I think that it is premature (at best) to discount NHL teams in the sun belt as failures. If you want to see the Thrashers have the same fan support as the Blackhawks (which may never happen to that degree, considering the history of the Blackhawks franchise), you have to give Atlanta a chance for a generation to grow up with the Thrashers as the hometown team. (I don't know the dynamics of the Thrashers fan base at all--just using them as an example.)

I'm not against expanding the NHL. I'm not against it at all. I wish the NHL could keep up with the other 3 power house sports, NBA MLB and NFL..

However it lags behind and I think it's because of the Sun Belt movement. I just wish more people in the south enjoyed and followed hockey....

It's like having a professional Surfing team in Minnesota, it's just part of our culture like it is in Florida, California or Hawaii...

(Even though people do surf on Lake Superior) ...
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Old 02-01-2011, 01:44 PM
 
20,793 posts, read 61,323,996 times
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When DS18 was on a campus tour at Bemidji there was a hockey player from Georgia there. About half way through the tour his mom asked "so, just how cold does it get here?" I don't think he went there, or at least he didn't make the team if he did.
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Old 02-01-2011, 02:22 PM
 
256 posts, read 586,305 times
Reputation: 140
There is an awful lot of hockey being played in Minnesota. 5 D-I hockey teams*, 11 D-III teams, a great many high school and amatuer teams. The Wild have a lot of competition. A hockey team in the south may be the only hockey team around.

*Aside from the University of Minnesota, the other D-I hockey schools are D-II schools that are allowed up play in D-I because there is no D-II championship. Comparison to football isn't valid, because you aren't allowed to play up a level in football.
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