Active Thursday Reading

Writing is a sedentary sport. There's two things moving around. My eyes and my fingers. Reading usually only requires your eyes. Today though I'm asking something specific of you beyond eyeball movement and comprehension. This thread regarding the proposed new arena over at The UAA Fan Forum is the genesis for this post. With the run-up to the season and my generally busy fingers I hadn't thought much about the arena. One of the fine folks who comments here sporadically mentioned this a while back and my thought was," cool, thanks for mentioning it; I've already forward my thoughts." But that was it. I should have dedicated a post to the whole thing and didn't. I'm rectifying that now.

There's a lot to say about the new rink without mentioning the budget cutting drama that we went through over the summer. I first mentioned a new Arena back in July 2006 when I had no idea it was being considered. In February of this year I posted an update which included a link to the "masterplan" which talked about the arena. Then in April (thanks to Wolfman who BTW is soon to be on his way to lovely Iraq) I posted the preliminary drawings. Since that time the Governor vetoed some requested funds saying that UAA had the money already. So the UAA Administation moved forward and the planning process is still underway. More important than any of that stuff (which we all pretty already know) is this page at Go Seawolves which says:

UAA Chancellor Fran Ulmer has created a planning team to develop a comprehensive plan for determining location, design, funding, construction, operation, traffic and parking, and other assorted elements associated with a multi-use sports arena. Bill Spindle, interim vice chancellor for administrative services, heads the planning team. The planning process is expected to take up to one year to complete.

"We will involve the UAA family, our neighbors and the Anchorage community in this process,” said Chancellor Ulmer. “Construction of a sports complex to meet both the needs of our students and the Municipality is an important step in strengthening community partnerships and developing the Anchorage campus.”

Preliminary discussions within the UAA athletic community have occurred over the past several years, the result of which are several preliminary sports complex and arena concepts. Artists’ renderings, available online at GoSeawolves.com, show some of the designs the planning committee will consider.

The preamble to all that is why I'm writing today. It says (in nice bold type):

UAA is interested in your thoughts, concerns & ideas regarding the proposed new multi-use sports arena.

Between that preamble and the announcement above is the meat of the matter. It's a link to an email address which I'm hoping that each of my fine regular readers will exercise after reading this sentence. The email address is:

meagan.olson@uaa.alaska.edu

So if you're reading this sentence then I'm assuming that you've opened your email application or webmail site and that you've typed in the address and added your thoughts in support of the arena then hit the "SEND" button. Chancellor Fran Ullmer is hoping that you have. Arena Planning Administrator Bill Spindle would like to hear from you. And I've no doubt that Athletic Director Steve Cobb wants your input. The entire community of UAA athletes and staff need you to do this. Building this arena isn't a process that happens without community input and support.

So I'm asking that today you become an Active Reader and participate in the process. Tell 'em all what you think. If the Arena can't be built fast enough for you, tell them that. If you believe that it's important for the schools identity to provide quality facilities for its students and athletes, tell them that. If you want to see some specific feature incorporated into the joint, tell them that. If you want to see the facility named after the hockey programs founding father Brush Christiansen, tell them that. If you're the CEO of a large multinational corporation and you want to donate millions to help get it done, tell them that. If you're an alumni of the program and know how much it will benefit all sports at UAA, tell them that. If you're a Blueliner Booster Club member or just an itinerant fan and you're excited to get a quality venue, tell them that. If you're primarily an Aces fan and hope to see 10,000 people in a rink cheering during an ECHL season, tell them that. If you're a fan of college hockey in general and live in Minnesota, Colorado, Georgia, Maine or Timbuktu and you know a new UAA arena is a good thing for the sport in general, tell them that. Whether it's 10 words or 1000 lets fill up that email inbox eh?

With filling that inbox as a goal, I've created the leaflet to the left that I'm hoping to print and pass out at UAA games. I figure I've got somewhere around 500 readers. But every weekend around 8 times more people than that show up at the Sully to watch the team.

I thought printing something like the following and passing it out this weekend would be a good idea. Let me know if you're interested in helping in any way. Can you print a thousand? Help pay for a thousand? I figure 4 leaflets to a single 8 by 10 sheet and four people distributing them before the games is what's needed. Click on the picture to see a bigger picture of the leaflet. If you want to help email me or text me using the text widget. I don't know if we can get this done before this weekend's games but if we don't the next home games aren't until the end of November.

Doing this sort of thing isn't necessarily one of my strengths. I like to think of myself as mostly an idea guy; but I'm willing to do whatever legwork is necessary to help get as many emails into the planning committee's email inbox as possible. I'm hoping I have an active reader or two (or four) that feel this is a good idea and want to participate. Do I?