Official attendance: 2691 . Some may have viewed elsewhere in the space, standing or lounges, but yeah, many sold out events have pockets of seats unoccupied.
Sure - and some chronic absentees were trying to sell tix on Vivid etc. for $90+ a pop. I saw the same thing we saw at XL - a lot of fully paid for but unused seats. UConn should keep track of that and figure out how to get the seats used or re-allocated. You know the almighty buck reigns supreme, but I saw a lot of primo seats unused and it's wrong and looked weird. I thought such a phenomenon would be somewhat limited at a campus facility, but there were a lot of vacancies, especially for a HE game against a natural rival.
As far as the deck is concerned, there are two problems. First, when I walked the concourse during the game, I noticed sight line problems on the edges, very limited SRO visibility and a patent discrimination against short people who don't make it to the rail. So much so, it brought to mind Randy Newman's opus:
Well, I don't want no short people
Don't want no short people
Don't want no short people
'Round here
Also, the tall table lounge adjacent the entrance creates a lot of wasted space. How does that even work for hockey? Perhaps, you could meet your accountant there and do your taxes. In addition, you give up the north/south viewing of a game for many more people. A lot of hockey purists love an elevated, behind the goal perspective for viewing.
In sum, I think the design evidences that some people who don't really follow or know hockey had a hand in the design. I think the facility tries to be too many things to too many people. For comparison, look at simplicity and efficiency of Quinnipiac, Gutterson (UVM), Whittemore (UNH), Bright (Harvard), Lynah (Cornell) and even the new SHU arena for examples of arenas where hockey comes first...
Finally, I miss Tiesto's "The Business" (or if it was played, it was unrecognizable to me). Maybe it could not pass the "appropriateness" test. Still it was a great song when UConn entered the XL Center.
On the bright side, I think most every thing I mention can be remedied w/o a lot of aggravation or reconstruction.
The bones of the building appear to be solid and any current deficiencies can be addressed.
