CC flattens Minnesota 3-1

On the first night of the season, the Tigers looked to be ready to start the WCHA tournaments. The Tigers out-skated, out-hit and out-played the Gophers who looked worn out after the first period. Although they struck quickly after the Tigers first score (the PA announcer wasn't even through announcing the goal) they looked over matched the rest of the way. CC has always been know as a finesse, speedy team but there were numerous hip-checks that send gophers flipping faster than Eddi Murphy chase the rodent in "caddy shack". I was impressed with the team all the way around. The only downfall of the night was the World Arena was probably only at 75% capacity. The annoying old Minnesota fans behind me (that kept saying, "c'mon Gophs, SKATE!" something they didn't do well all night) was even surprised-he got his ticket the day they went on sale. Welcome to Colorado Springs, home of individuals. It also doesn't help that we have 2 D-I teams in the same city. But back to the game; by the third period, the Tigers were skating circles around Don Lucia's team...literally! Did anyone keep track of how long the Tigers were in Minnesota's end in that third period?!! Great game, great team, if they keep this up the 07/08 Tigers are going to be something special.

World Arena History

Well, the weekend series against #4 St. Cloud State didn't start off as well as hoped. It's funny how mental lapses can ruin a game. Fortunately, CC didn't lose any ground in the standings and hopefully can rebound tonight. I just remembered today that my first CC games was a loss against St. Cloud up at Clune arena. I remember clearly because I was wondering why the opposing team was wearing Montreal Canadiens jerseys, haha. I was just looking over some of the history of CC and came across some nice pics of the old Broadmoor World Arena/ Broadmoor Ice Palace. I remember walking there in elementary school for field trips. I never did see a CC game there but my parents always talked about the traffic in the Broadmoor neighborhood after the games. This place was one of the premier centers in the country with Cheyenne Canyon in the background. It hosted the NCAA championship 11 times between 1948 and 1969. I really wish The Springs still had something like that, something nationally known, especially for the hockey team. It seems like college hockey is seen (on a national scale anyway) and an east coast sport. Teams like Boston, Maine and UMass seem to get all of the national attention. Even when the WCHA had all final 4 teams, there was not too much in the way of national attention. It's too bad people have so many preconcieved notions about certain things. For example, people here in Nebraska (for the most part) think that it always snows in Colorado and we all go skiing all the time, even though those of us in the Springs know that its usually 50 degrees in the winter. This is probably off the hockey topic but its something that makes me mad. National exposure=top tier recruits and money and fans. If only College hockey could be more known as a national sport, rather than a sport with good east coast teams. That just seems like the way it is. Anyway as for tonight, GO TIGERS!

Wednesday update

Hey I just wanted to say thanks to all who have written comments and posted links, I'm glad I can finally get this thing going and we can make a difference. My goal this week is to write a bit about the games coming up this weekend, hopefully I can get some time tomorrow afternoon. It's pretty exciting to see that people are actually reading this and I hope you all can start giving me input and we can start a local "grassroots" style campaign to help out CC. (nothing like the Boston/cartoon network fiasco though, haha). I was not aware of the season ticket total so that is good to know, but I'm not sure it's good or bad . It's good because the Arena holds 7532 so 6000 is pretty darn close but it's bad because, well, there were not anywhere close to 6000 at the two games I went to (the ND fans were louder than us!!...and notice the purple in the darkness). Maybe an online ticket exchange would make things easier for people to get their tickets used and not have the hassle of trying to sell them out front before the games. Also, I am really, really interested in the podcast/vodcast idea for the games, especially now that I see at least one other commenting fan is away from the Springs. Anyone with connections let me know, I would love to be able to watch this weekend's games at St. Cloud (I had a professor that was from there).
On a random note, here in Lincoln they have a team called the Stars which plays in the USHL. I never really knew much about it or the team but it's a big deal here. Turns out they are younger players (16-20 years old) who then get recruited out of these teams for college. I have always known that hockey has some "non traditional" means of development but I confess I never knew about a local team full of hs kids. Anyway, the cool thing about this was that two of the players are slated to play for CC and one for DU (yea boo but "it's" our conference...). I read the article in the paper and saw it mentioned the powerhouse teams with CC right in the mix!

extra local team?

One big problem that I have seen with CC Tiger hockey is that of the fan base. It seems like most of the fans are from the South West part of the city, which is great, but where is the rest of the city? By playing their games at the old Broadmoor World Arena, the neighborhood following began but I can't figure out why the rest of our city (read: mostly transplants) won't jump on and at least take a look. Sure AF is up north but what about the middle and the east? I am at a loss as to how we should market the team across the city. Praco Limited does their advertising (which will be the subject of a later blog) and they do a decent job, but it just isn't working. I would really like to get in touch with people in Falcon, downtown and along N. Nevada, Stetson Hills and the surrounding areas. I want to see if they even know about CC and how we can reach them better, despite the long drive to the World Arena.

Let's get the word out

Hey CC fans, I'm working on a class project in which we need to use new technology to get the word out about a cause we believe in. After going to two of the Tigers' games over my Christmas break I quickly figured out what I needed to work on. I noticed that purple dominated the stands more that yellow and gold. I just can't understand this, we have an amazing program that has numerous NCAA tournament appearances and is always very competitive in their conference not matter how much "rebuilding" is going on. Tickets are cheap, the facilities are great (except maybe the white color of the netting) and the team is amazing. I wanted to create a blog where we can come together and discuss, not so much the team and games, but more how to get more people aware of the team, the games and the sport of college hockey. We can suggest things to the athletic department, the advertising agency (Praco Limited) , the World Arena or simply do things ourselves. Let's try to get the games sold out for next season and make a run at the Broadmoor Trophy and National Championship!