Latest Hockey Arena Update (Approved) | Page 3 | The Boneyard

Latest Hockey Arena Update (Approved)

huskymedic said:



-> In the bowl, the seating will consist of 80% with seatbacks and 20% on benches. The team facilities will include full Division I training and support for the women’s and men’s teams; team lounges; dry locker area and locker rooms with video displays; locker rooms for the visiting teams; training space with a hydrotherapy area; strength and conditioning room; and other areas such as coaches’ offices, a press box, dining area, ice plant and spaces for support services.

The new facility will also have a large center-hung display scoreboard with perimeter ribbon boards and will be designed to create an outstanding experience for fans with state-of-the-art sound and lighting features. <-
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If you look closely at the photoshopped mascot, you can see an AAC logo! AAC hockey, FTW. Go East Carolina Ice Pirates!
 
Butch said:
If you look closely at the photoshopped mascot, you can see an AAC logo! AAC hockey, FTW. Go East Carolina Ice Pirates!
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Good pickup. At least UConn is up 3-1 over Boston College. Why are so many fans wearing short sleeve shirts while the exterior rendering depicts a cold wintry night?
 
Butch said:
If you look closely at the photoshopped mascot, you can see an AAC logo! AAC hockey, FTW. Go East Carolina Ice Pirates!
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1619720589809.png
 
Butch said:
Should have at least went with 4000 seats and then never have to play off campus again.

Still hard to believe Cavanaugh so stupidly squandered away an average attendance of around 7000.
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Are you saying it was his choice to go with a smaller arena??

Does Hockey have any big donors, like Football (Burton, Schenkman) Basketball (Wirth) Baseball (Elliott) and Soccer (Rizza (spelling??))?? I don't know.
 
Platt81 said:
I would go with the mindset that I’d rather have full capacity and the seats be a hot commodity than play to a half full house.
Honest question, is there attendance figures for the larger B1G arenas?
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Minnesota is at 10K, Wisconsin 15K, Ohio State 17500 (but that ones a hybrid basketball-hockey arena and OSU rarely fills half of it). Everyone else is in the same range of 5k-6k: PSU about 5700, MSU 6100, Mich 5800, ND 4850.
 
JeannoCT said:
Are you saying it was his choice to go with a smaller arena??

Does Hockey have any big donors, like Football (Burton, Schenkman) Basketball (Wirth) Baseball (Elliott) and Soccer (Rizza (spelling??))?? I don't know.
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Well, you, after your big lottery win...
 
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CL82 said:
Well, you, after your big lottery win...
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Ha! Still trying. I’ll let you know Saturday after Friday nights mega millions drawing. 🤞

And yes, I’d be that donor.
 
Kolumbo said:
Notre Dame's Compton Family Ice Arena was built in 2011 for $50 million and seats 5k and is 212,000 square feet. We're spending $70 million for a 97,000 square foot facility. Why go cheap on the seats? It seems designing the arena to fit an extra 1k or 2k seats shouldn't add much cost and we're going small and expensive.
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Full disclosure:

I have been critical in the past of the capacity, dearth of chairbacks, and numerous delays, but........................

Now that it appears, finally, to be a done deal I am supportive of what has been planned. Please keep in mind that the "big" men's Hockey East games will be played at the XL Center. So when BC, BU, UMass, Northeastern, Providence, et al, come here they will draw upwards of 5,000 fans in Hartford. Maybe 7,000-8,000 if we are near the top of the conference. Perhaps Yale and QU will draw well also.

The "lesser" HE games, along with out-of-conference foes such as Sacred Heart, Bentley, RPI, Army, AIC, et al, will likely play in Storrs, before a rabid student-dominated campus crowd..................as college hockey should be.

And this is BIG: Our women's team will no longer be relegated to the high school Freitas arena. If you haven't been to a UConn women's game.................go. They are fun to watch, play very good hockey, have been to two HE tourney finals recently and represent the university well. Now they will get to play in a classy college facility, as they should.

Freitas will become a secondary practice site. The new arena will not only improve recruiting (both women and men), it will enhance the playing, viewing and locker room experience.

Only one (personal) caveat.................Will I be able to get chairholder season tickets in Storrs, having been a season ticketholder since the men joined HE in 2014? If not, I might want to revise this post!
 
Viet Vet said:
Full disclosure:

I have been critical in the past of the capacity, dearth of chairbacks, and numerous delays, but........................

Now that it appears, finally, to be a done deal I am supportive of what has been planned. Please keep in mind that the "big" men's Hockey East games will be played at the XL Center. So when BC, BU, UMass, Northeastern, Providence, et al, come here they will draw upwards of 5,000 fans in Hartford. Maybe 7,000-8,000 if we are near the top of the conference. Perhaps Yale and QU will draw well also.

The "lesser" HE games, along with out-of-conference foes such as Sacred Heart, Bentley, RPI, Army, AIC, et al, will likely play in Storrs, before a rabid student-dominated campus crowd..................as college hockey should be.

And this is BIG: Our women's team will no longer be relegated to the high school Freitas arena. If you haven't been to a UConn women's game.................go. They are fun to watch, play very good hockey, have been to two HE tourney finals recently and represent the university well. Now they will get to play in a classy college facility, as they should.

Freitas will become a secondary practice site. The new arena will not only improve recruiting (both women and men), it will enhance the playing, viewing and locker room experience.

Only one (personal) caveat.................Will I be able to get chairholder season tickets in Storrs, having been a season ticketholder since the men joined HE in 2014? If not, I might want to revise this post!
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It will be interesting how they handle ticket sales. Not sure how many season tickets holders we currently have but some will drop out because of driving to storrs. I’m guessing donor level will be figured in there.
 
Butch said:
Should have at least went with 4000 seats and then never have to play off campus again.

Still hard to believe Cavanaugh so stupidly squandered away an average attendance of around 7000.
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Almost had it.
 
I wonder if a hockey rink would fit inside Gampel if they cut away seats. It would be The Igloo. Then build a new basketball arena. Just thinking outside the box, or the igloo, is it were.
 
Kolumbo said:
I wonder if a hockey rink would fit inside Gampel if they cut away seats. It would be The Igloo. Then build a new basketball arena. Just thinking outside the box, or the igloo, is it were.
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My understanding is it would not.
 
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Butch said:
Should have at least went with 4000 seats and then never have to play off campus again.

Still hard to believe Cavanaugh so stupidly squandered away an average attendance of around 7000.
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When the hockey program has proven it can draw 6-8K for the biggest games what's stupid is playing all games in an arena capped at 4-5K. I think this is a good mix - play the OOC and lesser HE games on campus and play the top 7-8 teams in XL. Would have preferred 2600 be 4000, but oh well. It will still be much better than the current status.
 
No skin in the fight and it's way too late for changes, but make the scoreboard smaller to save some $$$$, boost the wifi inside the building and add 3-4 more rows of seats on second level to get you to 4k seats.

I get the big huge scoreboard thing is a thing nowadays but most people spend more time on their phone socializing than they do staring at a big scoreboard. There's a huge difference between AT&T in Texas where there are 100k+ fans at a game and your seat may be 70 yards from the field. A big scoreboard with video enhances the game experience. A hockey rink this size? You can watch action quite nicely with you eyes.

I mentioned in another thread I was up in Fairbanks back in March. The hockey rink for Alaska-Fairbanks hockey team was used for a vaccination site. It was a perfect size for a hockey rink.

4600 seats for hockey, a few hundred more for hoops and over 6300 for indoor events needing floor seating.

This reeks of the same issues when Gampel was originally built. I'd say it is also like the Rent but at least the Rent is outside and was designed for expansion. Expanding an outdoor stadium is much easier than adding seating to a building which is walled in and has a roof.

Seems like baseball and soccer fields are the only two they did right.

1619790467747.png
 
Chin Diesel said:
The hockey rink for Alaska-Fairbanks hockey team was used for a vaccination site. It was a perfect size for a hockey rink.
4600 seats for hockey, a few hundred more for hoops and over 6300 for indoor events needing floor seating.
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The Nanook's Carlson Center is aka The Big Dipper. No kidding.
 
The Viking said:
When the hockey program has proven it can draw 6-8K for the biggest games what's stupid is playing all games in an arena capped at 4-5K. I think this is a good mix - play the OOC and lesser HE games on campus and play the top 7-8 teams in XL. Would have preferred 2600 be 4000, but oh well. It will still be much better than the current status.
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Well, I never said must play on campus.

70 mil for a rink about the size of Colgate's new rink. Theirs cost half the price.
 
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JeannoCT said:
Are you saying it was his choice to go with a smaller arena??

Does Hockey have any big donors, like Football (Burton, Schenkman) Basketball (Wirth) Baseball (Elliott) and Soccer (Rizza (spelling??))?? I don't know.
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none announced yet. Perhaps before groundbreaking......
 
At the very least, this better result in a consistently ranked UConn women's hockey team. If not, someone robbed the school.
 
Butch said:
Well, I never said must play on campus.

70 mil for a rink about the size of Colgate's new rink. Theirs cost half the price.
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Colgate's new rink gives new meaning to the word intimate. I know they claim it seats about 2200 but I think they must be including some standing room (there's an open concourse behind the seating on one side of the rink). I sat at center ice in a section with 5 rows in front of the press box. Based on the drawings UConn's rink will be much a much larger space, with the two levels giving a more vertical feel. I can't believe for that money that couldn't add a few rows up top to get capacity to 3K-3.5K
 
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I really don’t understand how this can be justified. Gampel, Rentschler and now this rink: poor investments across the 3 most important sports.

Soccer and baseball the only ones done right.
 
I love hockey and want them to have a new rink. But for the cost and capacity this is absurd. Looks like a practice rink. Short sighted and overpriced.
 
The only way to get answers or get changes is make noise. This is completely bogus. SHU's rink will be over 120,000 sq ft.

Intimacy and design are great and sure may become a well liked rink as it is. Kinda similar to Ingalls in setup. But 2600?! Maybe they got it right, what would I know. At least we know the HCC won't be demolished now.
 
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As long as the ice sheet is 200 feet long x 85 feet wide, the training facilities are state of the art, the locker rooms are top notch, and the team meeting and study rooms are on par with the rest of hockey east then I'm good with the new arena. The seating capacity isn't all that important when the majority of the big games will be played in Hartford.
 
$27,000 per seat. Get $30/seat for 15 games and it will pay for itself in just 60 years, assuming no maintenance. Who is making decisions at this school?
 
WestHartHusk said:
$27,000 per seat. Get $30/seat for 15 games and it will pay for itself in just 60 years, assuming no maintenance. Who is making decisions at this school?
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Oh, it's going to be so exuberant!
 
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