1) As we alluded to in our post last month when we discussed attendance issues in the NHL, the team with The worst fan support is the New Jersey Devils.
http://newfaux.blogspot.com/2007/03/attendance-issues.html
2) Despite being at or near the top in their division/conference for the past decade+, having 3 Stanley Cups, perennially in the post season; they still played before an amazingly atrocious 73.8% capacity during the regular season!! That's 'good' for 27th. At least the 3 teams below them have an excuse; they haven't even sniffed the playoffs in the last 3 years. The Devils have NO excuse.
3) These problems are now magnified even more. The Devils are handing out tickets(distributing) thousands in the playoffs(unheard of in most other NHL cities) and STILL they are NOT coming close to selling out the Meadowlands arena. For their first game against the Senators Thursday night 15,000 or so was the announced 'crowd'. Three thousand short of a sell out. Pathetic! These are the conference semifinals folks, not a regular season game! We understand tickets aren't cheap, but if your fan base doesn't include 18,000 people who can afford to see a playoff game then you may want to think about moving the team to a new location where they can
4) Today the absurdity got even more intense when the Devils had a good reason for the bad attendance: The building is too big! They said that Continental Arena, with the ninth-largest seating capacity in the N.H.L., had always been too roomy for the team’s fan base... The Devils are short-term tenants in a building “That’s why we’re moving,” Jeffrey Vanderbeek, the team’s principal owner, said Tuesday. Vanderbeek is convinced the situation will improve once the Devils get to the Prudential Center. Besides, he pointed out, the Devils averaged 16,941 for the three games against the Lightning, which would be close to a full house in the new arena.
Got an attendance problem? Want to go from 75% to 80% attendance with a snap of the fingers? Want to get close to a full house in the playoffs overnight? Easy. Shrink the arena.
5) Of course there are more than enough folks who could afford the ticket prices. The Devils problems is lack of interest. That's what is most alarming. This is a good team. The arena is relatively easy to get to. The area population is huge. There is ZERO reason to have any problems. If they weren't building a brand new arena we'd say the Devils days in the Garden State could be numbered. What remains to be seen is when they build it, will they come? If the past is any indicator, the answer is NO, but no one will care.
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11 comments:
I agree there is no excuse now that the playoffs are here. I completely get the regular season. If you have ever been to the area you would know how out of the way the arena is. Would you really want to drive that far to watch the Devils play say the Panthers or Bruins or even Division rivals Flyers and Islanders?
Wow? This place goes deader than a morgue on weekends. Where is everyone? Anyone up for some hockey yatter?
1) Morgue? Geez Shuck, this web site publishes 6 or 7 blog posts since last Sunday and we take 1 day to relax and not post and its dead? LOL
2) Perhaps on non publishing days we'll have a daily open forum for folks to post their thoughts on the previous nights occurrences
Sorry faux. Just seems that some days there are a lot of people commenting and visiting and all, and then the weekend hits and noone comes.
But you do great work, so a day off shall be fair.
I could care less about the Devils anyways. Maybe more people would have posted if the subject was interesting?
1) We can't comment upon when/why certain posts elicit more response than others. We did seem to have some traffic/interst on Saturday's posting. Sunday is one of the only days this past week we didn't post a new article
2) We visit many hockey blogs and very few post daily. We believe we have posted over 250 individual posts since we began this endeavor last August. We feel that's pretty dam impressive if we say so ourselves. LOL
1) Sorry Lloyd you didn't find our Devils article too interesting We learned LONG ago that we will never make all our many loyal readers happy with every posting
2) We thank them all though for their support and kind words that we've received since last summer. 3) As a newer poster (unless you have been here under another name) you may want to look at some of our archived posts from last fall. Sadly not all were salvageable from when we were hacked by a lonely/deluded individual this past February. However, we were able to retain many of our better past articles. Welcome abaord Lloyd and Enjoy!
Yeah I went back and looked at some of the stuff ya got from last year. I'd love to hear more about that rusckie crook and beautiful translater you talked to last year!
1) Back on subject the Devils: Shuck mentions that their current arena is "out of the way".
2) Yes, we have been there MANY times going back to their inaugural season when they were "The Mickey Mouse Team". The Meadowlands Arena is NOT 'out of the way'. In fact after visiting 29 of the 30 arenas last fall we found it one of the easiest to get to. It was right off the New Jersey Turnpike. Its 5 miles from NYC. Totally highways All the way!
3) Ofcourse there isn't much night life in and around the arena, but there is plenty of parking lot to 'tailgate'. If anyone has ever been to Newark (where the Devils are moving) you know its probably safer to walk around Beirut with a Yamica than to be seen anywhere alone in Newark
Faux, perhaps your 1 visit from a hotel room to the arena doesn't really give the area justice. Try commuting to and from the arena 41 times in 7 months from where the fans live. That is the issue. They can pave the highway in gold but doesn't get the arena any closer to the Fans!
BTW, sounds like a cool trip. What arena did you miss?
1)It was a VERY cool trip, but exhausting! We never made it to Dallas. As it was the itinerary/travel was over ambitious and very taxing
2) If/when we did it again we would NOT try to see 29 cities in a mere 2+ months! Getting stranded in the Denver airport trying to get to Vancouver will never be forgotten. Great experiences al, and we met some great folks who we will always stay friends, but next time we will do it differently!
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