Wildfan

more butt in seats as UND fans for sure travel well and won't be out pre-gaming outside of the rink. And after UND win fans are more apt to stay and watch their next opponent and buy all T-Mobile arena beer

Sioux Falls Regional Final: UND vs QU: 6209 according to USCHO gamesheet. This seems low looking at pictures, and the game when compared to the 1st rd regional numbers (Thursday was 5,114) so they state just over 1,000 more attended today vs Thursday.

Worchester Regional Attendance for Final UW vs MSU: 3788 according to USCHO gamesheet Sioux Falls Regional Final: UND vs QU: 6209 according to USCHO gamesheet. The Sioux Falls one seems low looking at pictures, and the game when compared to the 1st rd regional numbers (Thursday was 5,114) so they state just over 1,000 more attended today vs Thursday.

Ratings for this game probably going to give ESPN confusion as they didn't put it on the promoted channel, ESPN2, until after it was already 3-0. 4-0 by the halfway part of the game. Alot of people probably tune in thinking not much of a game to watch going forward. As a UND fan tho it's exciting.

Wild potentially had the eyes to sign him needing a center going into the playoffs.

Ticketmaster showing more than 2/3 of the lower bowl looks to be sold. Some sections of upper deck look mostly sold, however it also looks like the upper half of the upper deck were probably not ever available as they all have no availability upper the halfway mark. Stubhub is pretty limited overall on their resales.

But Colby told Mike McMahon that ESPN has 8 quality broadcast teams they can use if went to home sites.

I have only seen 2 small lots right against the building ever be charged and those were listed as VIP lots

Just let Midco produce the frozen four, ESPN can just broadcast their production.

ESPN should've just contracted to Midco to broadcast these games on their behalf on ESPN. I wouldn't doubt that they contracted either individuals or a cheaper company to run the camera wires and other equipment for them. CBSSports used to use alot of existing setup for their broadcast from the Ralph, they would swap some cameras but think they used existing wiring etc. Believe the Summit League does as well with Midco broadcasting the games prior to championships.

After seeing even more complaining about how East Coast teams had to travel to SF and attendance would've been much better out East I came across the 2023 Bridgeport Regional where Quinnipiac played against Merrimack. Qunnipiac is 25 miles from Bridgeport, and Merrimack is 166 miles. So 30 min and 2.5 hour drive and their attendance for that game was 4,462. Well actually that same attendance number was used for both first round games with the other being Ohio State vs Harvard. So add in Harvard at 149 miles and they drew less for attendance then Sioux Falls did only 1 team considered drive-able distance at 319 miles and over 4 hours.

Would think that would be somewhat close with the capacity of Premier Center. Some pics made it potentially look a little more full that that but those are deceiving too. The upper deck does not hold a lot in SF. Also just curious does anyone know what metric they go by for this since it was posted no re-entry and so you had people from the first game that didn't scan in for the 2nd game, so can't go by scans so there has to be some estimating based on what looks open? I don't believe they use total tickets sold but could be wrong. Edit: that is the only game not showing 0 on USCHO

UND also lost 5-2 to Clarkson who was 8th in ECAC and under .500. 2nd night was atleast a win but still was only 1-0. Nothing comes easy this time of year.

ESPN loves the super zoomed fan shots, unless they left it to USHL scoreboard video operators...

Also Merrimack had 11 FO wins to ND 22 FO wins in the first 2 periods. The 3rd period: 13 wins for Merrimack to UND's 8.

UND has 3 shots in the 3rd. Luckily one was a goal.

Bid and you are likely to get it if it is a neutral site. There were numerous years where the midwest regional was pretty much a short drive from the 2 East regionals. Pretty much used to be 3 in Eastern time zone, and then the west would be in St Paul every other year, and then struggle to be anywhere else in the west the other years. NCAA at one point stated they would give preference to any teams further west if they would atleast bid and then Notre Dame ended up hosting on campus. After that UND started bidding Fargo every 2 years, and the off years they would try to bid the Ralph. Before that they put in Fargo/Sioux Falls bids. They quit bidding on Sioux Falls after the 2018 regional when they didn't make it as it was better to commit to hosting Fargo. Sioux Falls Sports Authority push hard to get NCAA tournaments and neutral site college games (basketball/volleyball). But while they are willing to put money forward towards a bid they seem to lack in marketing. The events they host with Sanford Sports get alot of marketing in Sioux Falls at a facility that hosts 3,200 people (pentagon).

This is the same host school that drilled into a coolant line when clearing the peg holes at the outdoor game...

Merrimack will start trying to press harder. This will open things up for potential breaks like that. Don't turn into a defensive shell and take advantage and put the game away.

They didn't do the WWE method of moving everyone to hard camera side. Hopefully they allowed people in the 2nd deck to move down. Previous regionals they didn't have the upper deck for sale. Other events they keep it blocked until demand indicates which then they open for sale 1 section at a time.

Part of the reason when #1 seed used to get to pick early or late game instead of ESPN picking that UND would pick the early game. Ice is normally better and the team would get a few more hours of rest in between games. It was 2 games in 2 days then tho as well instead of 2 in 3 days.

i thought they allowed rinks a few years ago to keep their ice as is without having to replace to put the NCAA logos on them after they had years of bad ice? 2018 when UND hosted in Sioux Falls they sent ice techs from the Ralph multiple times in the weeks leading up to the regional. They did the same for Fargo, but they did have some rough ice there one year as well even with the crew. But I believe that year was the year that the NCAA placed blame on ice being "too new" as they replaced logos the week of.

i do recall that now, for whatever reason that may be the only sound i really heard outside the commentator.

seems like the ESPN coverage has no ice level mics. Can barely hear anything from the ice that typically can with hockey on tv, the announcers are just much louder than the background mics.

Have skated on it in previous years and it was pretty good those years. It was a little softer than the youth rinks that are always freezing but I felt the same about the Ralph's ice compared to the Olympic sheet or Blue Line Club Arena. But they also did have the ice out for like 3 weeks from SDHSAA wrestling and Summit league tournaments. But the stampede has played on it since then so should've been plenty of time. Some years they have kept the ice under the floor for these tournaments this year I am pretty sure they took it out instead of covering it. Not sure if they did that knowing they needed to change logos to NCAA and just accepted to completely replace instead of shaving down to logo level.