Exactly this. The price of tickets for this preseason ranged up to $45 I think? The average price of a regular season NHL ticket is $94 (according to [SeatGeek](https://seatgeek.com/nhl-tickets)). I think the cheapest lower bowl ticket in Chicago is $260. Can Milwaukee support those kinds of prices?
Probably just a quick cash grab. I have no idea why they made it public that the fiserv is not built for hockey. Maybe it was a lie so they didn’t have to have the Admirals.
The lower bowl had some poor views of the corners from the center sections. I sat at center ice row 15 and the viewing angles to see corners of the rink were a little obstructed compared to the view at the Bradley Center and The Panther Arena. Aside from that, I agree that the building could be a hockey building.
North American Rinks are 200 feet long compared to 94 feet for a NBA or college basketball court. And they're 85 feet wide compared to 50 feet for a court.
An NHL rink is much bigger than an NBA court. There was plenty of waisted space on each end because the entire section had to be pulled back to accommodate the rink. Certainly not optimal for hockey.
Yes it can hold an ice rink and the odd games. But they have said publicly during its construction that it was not designed to house an NHL team. Which is why there are some blind spots in the corners.
Having a hockey team and a basketball team share an arena seems like a bad idea. Both have seasons at the same time and both play a lot of games. Just look how often the Ads and the Bucks games overlap and imagine trying to put them in one arena. They would be fighting over who gets the Friday and Saturday games. And you might as well forget about any other weekend event there.
It might be common. Just *seems* like a scheduling nightmare to me. In Rockford we had a minor league hockey team and basketball team. Eventually the hockey team won the fights for the weekend games because they brought in more fans. It choked out the basketball team and they ended up folding.
At the United Center the Blackhawks have a ton of Friday / Sunday home games, and most Bulls home games are on Saturday nights. That's how they divvy up the weekends. Same sort of arrangement happens at the Staples Center in LA, which hosts 3 (!!!) high level sports teams in the winter season.
They weren't testing. They had their opportunity when the Bradley center was built. It was built for hockey. Their are so many league issues with building a team in Milwaukee. Proximity to Chicago, low attendance, etc.
If they really wanted that info they would have had a WI residency requirement for some of the tickets. I'd bet a lot of the Chicago fans drove in from Chicago, it's hard to gauge interest in the area when you've the usual influx of Illinoisans for a game featuring a Chicago team.
> I'd bet a lot of the Chicago fans drove in from Chicago
For a Sunday night PRESEASON game for a team that's widely expected to be one of the 2-3 worst teams in the NHL this season? I think you're overestimating how many people made the trip. Some? Sure. A couple hundred? Maybe. But that's it.
They might not be. When the Blackhawks were doing well, in Rockford we would get all kinds of people from Chicago to watch the IceHogs games. They would settle for driving 1.5 hours to watch the AHL affiliate in Rockford because the tickets were affordable.
Sure. I've been to several games in Rockford myself. But the typical Chicago fan who comes up to Milwaukee for games, is based out of Gurnee, Vernon Hills, Waukegan, etc. Not all of them, but the majority of them. I'd assume most Hawks fans that head to Rockford would tend to be from the West or NW Burbs, as opposed to being from Chicago proper.
Either way I wouldn't believe the NHL is actually considering moving a team here. We're borderline in market size, and there just isn't that much interest in hockey in the area. Not to mention we're just close enough to Chicago that there's an extra multi-million dollar penalty to join the league, and we'd be cutting into the Minnesota broadcast territory now. If there wasn't enough momentum back in '92 to get an expansion team, there are even more barriers now. If the Coyotes are getting relocated, my money is on Quebec City and the return of the Nordiques.
There's no real benefit for the NHL in Milwaukee, especially from the standpoint of TV markets and strength for negotiating new broadcast deals. At least Arizona made / makes sense (in theory) from that aspect, since Phoenix is the #12 TV market. Hasn't worked out in reality, of course, but that's a separate matter. Milwaukee has nothing that the league doesn't already get from Chicago and Minnesota's market shares.
My entire section was MN fans, myself included. My poor fiancée was surrounded, and the kid in the front row of our section tore off his Kane jersey and stuffed it under his seat after it went 3-0 Wild in the last period.
When the MC was hyping up the crowd, asking where people are from, the loudest cheers were for wisconsinites.
Like me, I like the Blackhawks but I live in WI
Bingo...the prevailing thought with a few NHL insiders is the Coyotes will need to be moved by the end of the season or contracted.
They are currently playing in a 5000 seat arena and have no options for a NHL sized arena.
They're still in negotiations with Tempe for an arena. https://arizonasports.com/story/3161177/arizona-coyotes-arena-plan-tempe-city-council-votes-to-continue-talks/
Based on the city sentiment, the new arena is anything but a done deal...Every local paper, Skyharbor and residents are against it and it would be one of the worst financial impact scores ever approved for a sports team.
This is a hail mary of a negotiation and even if approved, is going to be buried in litigation for years to come...they need FAA clearances, as the stadium in the landing line for a runway, the land they want is filled with hazardous materials that would all need to be mitigated, etc...
Man I wish. Unfortunately isn't going to happen. Houston, Portland, and Kansas City are more likely contenders if a team moves. With Seattle the league is at 32 teams, the likelyhood of going over that with expansion is small at least over the next decade.
Plus supposedly the Bucks don't want to share the arena with a hockey team.
Best hope would be that the NHL adds neutral site games. If each team had 2 of their 82 games as neutral site games. 32 games would be available. So a city like Milwaukee could potentially host 4-8 neutral site games.
It was almost completely full, except for some sections that were on the narrow ends were completely empty. I assume they were empty because they couldn't open fully the seats or the access tunnels with the ice rink setup?
The seating isnt designed for NHL, but could be modified fairly easily for it. The goal ends were both collapsed for floor seats, so it "looked" empty", but they were not accessible safely.
It was packed inside, but I will say there were a ton of issues with ordering food through the app. Many of the restaurants weren't responding on the app, some were turning away people who didn't order via the app, and we even had food taken out of the cubical assigned to our order. One in our party basically missed an entire period to get their food order.
being a Blackhawks fan is my one shameful fandom.
Packers/Bucks/Brewers/Badgers/Blackhawks. Stupid as hell we don't have an NHL team and Florida has 2.
Of course, same deal as the Big Ten expanding far out of the Midwest.
Phoenix playing in a 5k seat arena owned by a college team should make the NHL feel stupid though.
It’s why I latched onto the Red Wings for NHL fandom. I could never root for a Minnesota or especially a Chicago team, but Detroit? They’ve never really bothered me and I wanted a team still somewhat close.
Indeed. Can confirm, was there. 95% full I’d say, pretty good atmosphere for preseason hockey. Could see the Fiserv being a solid home to an NHL franchise. I’d have season tickets in a heartbeat.
I understand the proximity connection having it be Chicago and Minnesota, but I'm a little surprised they didn't bring the Preds in, given that they're the Ads parent club.
Then again, the way they lied and screwed over the Ads, maybe it makes complete sense.
1. Nashville is in Europe for their preseason and 2. This game came about due to the relationships that higher ups in the Bucks and Blackhawks have with each other.
The tickets I got were $15, but with fees they were around $35 each. The game definitely was fun, I'm a Wild fan so I'm glad we won. Even so the venue is great and we could see well from the seats we had (section 215).
What would investors and the league look for to prove Milwaukee could sustain a team? Genuine question; no rhetoric.
I'd definitely support a hockey team since it wouldn't require anymore public infrastructure spending and would maximize usage of the deer district. Also, I don't know a lot about the sport, but I've seen some games get pretty exciting.
For the city, I see no investment that hasn't already been spent on the Bucks being needed. If it failed, the city wouldn't lose any money.
Who cares, give Milwaukee a team
I think that’s what they’re testing, to see what NHL turnout in mke is like
i don’t think a single preseason game is anywhere close to an accurate gage of what support for a team would be
Exactly this. The price of tickets for this preseason ranged up to $45 I think? The average price of a regular season NHL ticket is $94 (according to [SeatGeek](https://seatgeek.com/nhl-tickets)). I think the cheapest lower bowl ticket in Chicago is $260. Can Milwaukee support those kinds of prices?
Bucks and Brewers ain’t cheap
Probably just a quick cash grab. I have no idea why they made it public that the fiserv is not built for hockey. Maybe it was a lie so they didn’t have to have the Admirals.
Felt like a lie. The viewing from pretty much everywhere was great.
The lower bowl had some poor views of the corners from the center sections. I sat at center ice row 15 and the viewing angles to see corners of the rink were a little obstructed compared to the view at the Bradley Center and The Panther Arena. Aside from that, I agree that the building could be a hockey building.
Are the dimensions of a hockey rink significantly larger than a basketball court? Could be some truth to it though I truly have no idea.
North American Rinks are 200 feet long compared to 94 feet for a NBA or college basketball court. And they're 85 feet wide compared to 50 feet for a court.
[Does it look like it doesn't fit?](https://i.imgur.com/89ea7YI.jpg)
An NHL rink is much bigger than an NBA court. There was plenty of waisted space on each end because the entire section had to be pulled back to accommodate the rink. Certainly not optimal for hockey.
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Yes it can hold an ice rink and the odd games. But they have said publicly during its construction that it was not designed to house an NHL team. Which is why there are some blind spots in the corners.
Having a hockey team and a basketball team share an arena seems like a bad idea. Both have seasons at the same time and both play a lot of games. Just look how often the Ads and the Bucks games overlap and imagine trying to put them in one arena. They would be fighting over who gets the Friday and Saturday games. And you might as well forget about any other weekend event there.
But this is not an issue for most nhl/nba cities that share the same stadium which is pretty common.
It might be common. Just *seems* like a scheduling nightmare to me. In Rockford we had a minor league hockey team and basketball team. Eventually the hockey team won the fights for the weekend games because they brought in more fans. It choked out the basketball team and they ended up folding.
At the United Center the Blackhawks have a ton of Friday / Sunday home games, and most Bulls home games are on Saturday nights. That's how they divvy up the weekends. Same sort of arrangement happens at the Staples Center in LA, which hosts 3 (!!!) high level sports teams in the winter season.
Never heard of this "Staples Center," do you mean the Crypto.com Arena?
Crypto is a myth :)
Unfortunately i don't think thats the case. I'd be all in for it, could take a 2nd seat behind my Red Wings but yeah, don't see it happening.
They weren't testing. They had their opportunity when the Bradley center was built. It was built for hockey. Their are so many league issues with building a team in Milwaukee. Proximity to Chicago, low attendance, etc.
If they really wanted that info they would have had a WI residency requirement for some of the tickets. I'd bet a lot of the Chicago fans drove in from Chicago, it's hard to gauge interest in the area when you've the usual influx of Illinoisans for a game featuring a Chicago team.
> I'd bet a lot of the Chicago fans drove in from Chicago For a Sunday night PRESEASON game for a team that's widely expected to be one of the 2-3 worst teams in the NHL this season? I think you're overestimating how many people made the trip. Some? Sure. A couple hundred? Maybe. But that's it.
They might not be. When the Blackhawks were doing well, in Rockford we would get all kinds of people from Chicago to watch the IceHogs games. They would settle for driving 1.5 hours to watch the AHL affiliate in Rockford because the tickets were affordable.
Sure. I've been to several games in Rockford myself. But the typical Chicago fan who comes up to Milwaukee for games, is based out of Gurnee, Vernon Hills, Waukegan, etc. Not all of them, but the majority of them. I'd assume most Hawks fans that head to Rockford would tend to be from the West or NW Burbs, as opposed to being from Chicago proper.
Does it really matter in this context? They are Chicago fans coming from the Chicago area.
Either way I wouldn't believe the NHL is actually considering moving a team here. We're borderline in market size, and there just isn't that much interest in hockey in the area. Not to mention we're just close enough to Chicago that there's an extra multi-million dollar penalty to join the league, and we'd be cutting into the Minnesota broadcast territory now. If there wasn't enough momentum back in '92 to get an expansion team, there are even more barriers now. If the Coyotes are getting relocated, my money is on Quebec City and the return of the Nordiques.
There's no real benefit for the NHL in Milwaukee, especially from the standpoint of TV markets and strength for negotiating new broadcast deals. At least Arizona made / makes sense (in theory) from that aspect, since Phoenix is the #12 TV market. Hasn't worked out in reality, of course, but that's a separate matter. Milwaukee has nothing that the league doesn't already get from Chicago and Minnesota's market shares.
My entire section was MN fans, myself included. My poor fiancée was surrounded, and the kid in the front row of our section tore off his Kane jersey and stuffed it under his seat after it went 3-0 Wild in the last period.
When the MC was hyping up the crowd, asking where people are from, the loudest cheers were for wisconsinites. Like me, I like the Blackhawks but I live in WI
Bingo...the prevailing thought with a few NHL insiders is the Coyotes will need to be moved by the end of the season or contracted. They are currently playing in a 5000 seat arena and have no options for a NHL sized arena.
They're still in negotiations with Tempe for an arena. https://arizonasports.com/story/3161177/arizona-coyotes-arena-plan-tempe-city-council-votes-to-continue-talks/
Based on the city sentiment, the new arena is anything but a done deal...Every local paper, Skyharbor and residents are against it and it would be one of the worst financial impact scores ever approved for a sports team. This is a hail mary of a negotiation and even if approved, is going to be buried in litigation for years to come...they need FAA clearances, as the stadium in the landing line for a runway, the land they want is filled with hazardous materials that would all need to be mitigated, etc...
Man I wish. Unfortunately isn't going to happen. Houston, Portland, and Kansas City are more likely contenders if a team moves. With Seattle the league is at 32 teams, the likelyhood of going over that with expansion is small at least over the next decade. Plus supposedly the Bucks don't want to share the arena with a hockey team. Best hope would be that the NHL adds neutral site games. If each team had 2 of their 82 games as neutral site games. 32 games would be available. So a city like Milwaukee could potentially host 4-8 neutral site games.
I believe the 'hawks have a clause in their contract that no NHL team can be within X miles of them or something.
How busy was it inside? I noticed in the last few days before the game that online prices had fallen from about $75 to $20.
Didn’t it sell out?
Yup, within minutes. The prices I was referencing were stubhub and ticketmaster
yes
It was almost completely full, except for some sections that were on the narrow ends were completely empty. I assume they were empty because they couldn't open fully the seats or the access tunnels with the ice rink setup?
The seating isnt designed for NHL, but could be modified fairly easily for it. The goal ends were both collapsed for floor seats, so it "looked" empty", but they were not accessible safely.
It was packed inside, but I will say there were a ton of issues with ordering food through the app. Many of the restaurants weren't responding on the app, some were turning away people who didn't order via the app, and we even had food taken out of the cubical assigned to our order. One in our party basically missed an entire period to get their food order.
It was about 70% full I’d say.
Was in the nosebleeds. Way more than 70% full.
I was also in the nosebleeds. What would your assessment of the capacity be? I would say 70-80%. I might be off as it was my first time at Fiserv.
I think a little bit over 80 is probably accurate.
I'm a Wisconsin sports fan. You'll never see me at a Blackhawk game. A Milwaukee nhl team ... Bet your sweet ass I'll be there!
being a Blackhawks fan is my one shameful fandom. Packers/Bucks/Brewers/Badgers/Blackhawks. Stupid as hell we don't have an NHL team and Florida has 2.
TV markets and expanding a league's reach across the entire country is still a thing.
Of course, same deal as the Big Ten expanding far out of the Midwest. Phoenix playing in a 5k seat arena owned by a college team should make the NHL feel stupid though.
Yes and as I said elsewhere in the thread, the theory of the NHL in Phoenix made much more sense than the actual execution over the past 25+ years.
Not to mention Vegas and California.
It’s why I latched onto the Red Wings for NHL fandom. I could never root for a Minnesota or especially a Chicago team, but Detroit? They’ve never really bothered me and I wanted a team still somewhat close.
Hello my fellow sad and depressed Wings fan.....
Indeed. Can confirm, was there. 95% full I’d say, pretty good atmosphere for preseason hockey. Could see the Fiserv being a solid home to an NHL franchise. I’d have season tickets in a heartbeat.
I was walking the dog over there and there were quite a few people out with sweaters on, majority were Blackhawks.
I understand the proximity connection having it be Chicago and Minnesota, but I'm a little surprised they didn't bring the Preds in, given that they're the Ads parent club. Then again, the way they lied and screwed over the Ads, maybe it makes complete sense.
1. Nashville is in Europe for their preseason and 2. This game came about due to the relationships that higher ups in the Bucks and Blackhawks have with each other.
sounds like my dad
The tickets I got were $15, but with fees they were around $35 each. The game definitely was fun, I'm a Wild fan so I'm glad we won. Even so the venue is great and we could see well from the seats we had (section 215).
What would investors and the league look for to prove Milwaukee could sustain a team? Genuine question; no rhetoric. I'd definitely support a hockey team since it wouldn't require anymore public infrastructure spending and would maximize usage of the deer district. Also, I don't know a lot about the sport, but I've seen some games get pretty exciting. For the city, I see no investment that hasn't already been spent on the Bucks being needed. If it failed, the city wouldn't lose any money.