Friday, August 26, 2011
Cappy's Blog: Big Ten Hockey...A no brainer
Cappy's Blog: Big Ten Hockey...A no brainer: There has been a lot of talk over the years about a Big Ten hockey conference. To be honest, I thought it would have taken a longer time for...
Big Ten Hockey...A no brainer
There has been a lot of talk over the years about a Big Ten hockey conference. To be honest, I thought it would have taken a longer time for it to become a reality. But thanks to a generous donation to Penn State University, hockey is in the mix, thus leading to having the minimum amount of teams (six) to comply with Big Ten rules for a conference to be created. Oh happy day in the eyes of this former Buckeye!
Where do I begin? When it comes to positives for this move. On name recognition alone this will be a great boost for the game. I can't even remember how many times I have had to explain to casual sports fans or even casual hockey fans for that matter, why we, as in Ohio State, don't play in the Big Ten Conference. The puzzled looks I would get from people and the repetition of explaining why we don't play in the Big Ten and who we play instead and what the CCHA actually is, all would take someone who was interested in talking to me about my experience of playing college hockey and make them slowly lose interest. Just too much to explain!!!
Having a name conference brings credibility to the sport immediately. To bring in the casual hockey fan or what a lot of people call fringe fans, you need to have a name that is familiar to them. People go to and follow things they they are familiar with. Take for example, a casual Michigan State fan is reading the paper on a Saturday morning and see's that the Spartans are playing Wisconsin tonight and thinks to themselves, I want to see my Spartans whoop on those Badgers tonight and heads to the game. Do you think if that same casual fan reading that they were playing Ferris State would jump at it the same way? Not a chance. Remember we are talking about the borderline fans, not the great college hockey fans that would know that Ferris state is a good opponent for the Spartans. We are talking about the important people. The important people if you want this great game of college hockey to grow. The ones that end up going to that Michigan St. vs Wisconsin game and say to themselves, I really enjoyed that, when is the next home game?
Tv. Tv. Tv!!!! How do you get a sport to grow? very simple, you get more people to watch it. How do you get more people to watch it? You make it more available to be seen. About 4 years ago the Big Ten Network was created. Largely and obviously it was be built around football and basketball. The number of hockey games it has televised is in the 8 to 10 range per season. That number is low because of the schools affiliations with the CCHA and WCHA. Because these teams don't play in the Big Ten Conference, the rights to these games have to be bought by the Big Ten, causing them to spend more money. The other issue in the past has been the problem of match ups. With these teams split into different conferences, there are just simply not enough games that match up two Big Ten schools against each other. Thus making less sense for a network to want to pay extra for rights to a game that doesn't feature two of it's schools.
Well that problem has been solved. Now that the conference has been established. The Big Ten network can be more open and creative in expanding it's hockey coverage. Let me throw out a couple of ideas for you.
Friday night becomes Big Ten hockey night. You could even have the possibility of having a double header if the schedule lines up right. You have a 7pm eastern start followed by a 930pm game. You make the back end game located on either the Wisconsin or Minnesota campus and its a 830 local start. I'm not going to compare it to Monday night football in its enormity but it would be using the same regularity feature that would draw fans based on it's reliability.
Couple Friday night in with either a Sunday night or Monday night game and you are looking at a schedule of 18-20 games on the Big Ten network every season. That is a 100% increase on exposure of the great game of college hockey and a 100% chance of growing the games popularity.
That's enough for now, I'm off to a good friends wedding in Cape Cod. Here's to surviving the weather and enjoying a great weekend.
Where do I begin? When it comes to positives for this move. On name recognition alone this will be a great boost for the game. I can't even remember how many times I have had to explain to casual sports fans or even casual hockey fans for that matter, why we, as in Ohio State, don't play in the Big Ten Conference. The puzzled looks I would get from people and the repetition of explaining why we don't play in the Big Ten and who we play instead and what the CCHA actually is, all would take someone who was interested in talking to me about my experience of playing college hockey and make them slowly lose interest. Just too much to explain!!!
Having a name conference brings credibility to the sport immediately. To bring in the casual hockey fan or what a lot of people call fringe fans, you need to have a name that is familiar to them. People go to and follow things they they are familiar with. Take for example, a casual Michigan State fan is reading the paper on a Saturday morning and see's that the Spartans are playing Wisconsin tonight and thinks to themselves, I want to see my Spartans whoop on those Badgers tonight and heads to the game. Do you think if that same casual fan reading that they were playing Ferris State would jump at it the same way? Not a chance. Remember we are talking about the borderline fans, not the great college hockey fans that would know that Ferris state is a good opponent for the Spartans. We are talking about the important people. The important people if you want this great game of college hockey to grow. The ones that end up going to that Michigan St. vs Wisconsin game and say to themselves, I really enjoyed that, when is the next home game?
Tv. Tv. Tv!!!! How do you get a sport to grow? very simple, you get more people to watch it. How do you get more people to watch it? You make it more available to be seen. About 4 years ago the Big Ten Network was created. Largely and obviously it was be built around football and basketball. The number of hockey games it has televised is in the 8 to 10 range per season. That number is low because of the schools affiliations with the CCHA and WCHA. Because these teams don't play in the Big Ten Conference, the rights to these games have to be bought by the Big Ten, causing them to spend more money. The other issue in the past has been the problem of match ups. With these teams split into different conferences, there are just simply not enough games that match up two Big Ten schools against each other. Thus making less sense for a network to want to pay extra for rights to a game that doesn't feature two of it's schools.
Well that problem has been solved. Now that the conference has been established. The Big Ten network can be more open and creative in expanding it's hockey coverage. Let me throw out a couple of ideas for you.
Friday night becomes Big Ten hockey night. You could even have the possibility of having a double header if the schedule lines up right. You have a 7pm eastern start followed by a 930pm game. You make the back end game located on either the Wisconsin or Minnesota campus and its a 830 local start. I'm not going to compare it to Monday night football in its enormity but it would be using the same regularity feature that would draw fans based on it's reliability.
Couple Friday night in with either a Sunday night or Monday night game and you are looking at a schedule of 18-20 games on the Big Ten network every season. That is a 100% increase on exposure of the great game of college hockey and a 100% chance of growing the games popularity.
That's enough for now, I'm off to a good friends wedding in Cape Cod. Here's to surviving the weather and enjoying a great weekend.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Big Ten Hockey
The creation of the Big Ten Hockey conference has shook up the College Hockey world. There are the haters and the players. Everyone has an opinion about it. Let me know what you think. Does it help the sport grow? Does it hurt it? Will the small schools fade away? Will the Big Ten Expand? So many things to discuss and all opinions are welcomed. I will give mine shortly.
*A bonus discussion, My former college teammate and now Vancouver Canuck star Ryan Kesler had off season hip surgery. Will he be ready to start the season? Can he overcome the injury and have another brilliant season?
*A bonus discussion, My former college teammate and now Vancouver Canuck star Ryan Kesler had off season hip surgery. Will he be ready to start the season? Can he overcome the injury and have another brilliant season?
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