As part of the INCH weekly conference previews for the WCHA Jess Myers often includes a "stick salute" for positives he views and "bench minors" for things that are negative. In last weeks column Jess gave UAA a "bench minor":
"For years we've wanted to see more games at Alaska Anchorage televised back to the Lower 48, but this season the Seawolf schedulers seem to have taken a step in the wrong direction. Friday night games in Anchorage now start at 7:37 p.m. Alaska time, meaning fans at Michigan Tech will have to stay up to 11:37 p.m. just to hear the first faceoff of their game on Jan. 19. Instead of going later, why not start some Saturday games at 4 p.m. Alaska time, so they'd be more attractive to TV folks in Minnesota, Wisconsin, etc., and perhaps give the UAA program some much needed exposure?"
So ... let me start by completely nixing the idea that anything other than a 7:37 start time on Fridays is a worthwhile idea. People in Anchorage work and need time to get home before heading out to the game on a Friday night. He notes that folks in Houghton will have to stay up til 11:37 PM to hear or see their team play in Anchorage. BooHoo. Any hockey fan that isn't willing to stay up late (or can't keep themselves awake that long) isn't much of a hockey fan in my book. Suck it up when you're team comes up here to play one weekend each season. Kwitcherbitchin ... if you're a fan it won't matter to you exactly what time on Friday night or early Saturday morning UAA beats your team.
OMG ... playing at 7pm on Saturday means that TV people in Minnesota and Wisconsin won't want to put the games on at 10pm? That's not a UAA scheduling problem. That's a problem with the viewers of those TV stations. If they were real hockey fans then they'd demand that their broadcaster's get on the bandwagon and show the games. Giving the Seawolves the blame is out of line. There's no onus on UAA to fix these alleged "problems". Any team in the WCHA could be broadcasting from Anchorage. THEY choose not to ... so in the future Jess ought to consider "bench minoring" the teams who's local audience doesn't care enough to get their broadcasters to pony up and show the games. Don't blame UAA. The equipment and facilities are in place. And when/if any broadcasters actually express an interest in broadcasting their games they'll probably find UAA willing to help by changing Saturday game times to something that will attract the sleepy whining throngs in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
8 comments:
Perhaps he should suggest games at Minny/Wisco begin at 10 pm local time so that UAA fans won't have to discreetly watch/listen online during work hours.
Good one Donald, Everybody loves to "bitch" about playing in Alaska. Screw 'em and their attitudes. When they play up here they get an exemption to play an extra series that year - UAA would love to have two extra games each year. Take the extra two games and STFU!
haha while being in wisco the badger fans are not mad about the late start of the game they are mad cause they have to be sober at 10 pm so we have to push the party on friday and saturday night back no one really cares down here. I am more concerend about getting my ass kicked when the wisco fans get drunk after they lose
I think that you might be missing the point this time Donald. The point is that UAA is not getting the exposure that it could to further "advertise" the school and team. The college hockey media has enough to watch and listen to without having to stay up to the wee hours of the east coast morning. the point is that UAA is robbing itself of exposure in the rest of the country and Canada. I say Canada because the people there will probably get their info from the media that isn't paying attention to the program.
I don't think I missed that point. But it's a spurious point. The east coast based majority of college hockey journalists and websites all basically CLOSE down by 4PM Alaska Time on a Friday and they don't do anything until Monday morning.
Show me a site that produces ANYTHING after 6pm EST on Friday. USCHO comes closest with it's "recaps" but otherwise there is squat. I guess when the Minnesota airwaves are filled with MSU-M, St. Cloud, UND, DU, CC Tech and UMD games then UAA might be missing out. But as it stands those teams get nothing other than LOCAL coverage which is exactly what UAA has.
I also realize that in some ways UAA can sometimes be a "media darling" of sorts. The poor performances with ever so brief flashes of potential creates a situation where someone like Jess might enjoy seeing the Seawolves have success. Lots of non-UAA fans have told me they'd love to see UAA tear it up. Sure Jess was really just trying to point out something that would help the program. The problem is that he has selected an issue that is at it's heart bogus. Like I said there is no "exposure" problem for UAA. They get equal (usually more) coverage in the national media as compared to the non-powerhouse WCHA teams. And any of those teams know (as does UAA) that winning will create more exposure.
And oh yeah ...
If someone wants to know something about UAA Hockey they ought to check here.
Yeah it ain't exactly hard for anybody to broadcast a game from Alaska. Just takes a bit of money to pay for the crew (I just wouldn't recommend the UAA or UAF crews (which incidently CSTV doesn't broadcast from Fairbanks anymore because they screwed it up)), satellite time (KTUU has an uplink truck and a portable uplink for use for the right price), and adverstising.
It's a time difference. Sorry that the world is sphere shaped and that Alaska ended up a few hours behind.
Donald, you are completely on target. Keep it up.
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