It was great to visit Springfield, Massachusetts and see the Pioneers emerge victorious over Cornell, with DU’s ticket to the 2024 Frozen Four now duly punched.
Since you’ve already read plenty about the hockey games by now, here is my four-minute summary of some elements of the NCAA Springfield Regional fan experience, beyond the hockey performance:
THE CITY IMPRESSION: It’s no secret that while Springfield isn’t Boston in terms of big city culture, population, or energy, it isn’t Worcester, Mass. or Allentown, Pa., either. It’s a small city of 150,000 people within a larger metro area of about 700,000, and they put on a good show. Good hotels, well-priced restaurants, and a quiet, walkable downtown – the city on the shores of the Connecticut River made for a pleasant weekend.
THE CITY NON-HOCKEY ATTRACTIONS: The biggest attraction in Springfield is the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame (basketball was invented at Springfield College by Canadian James Naismith). This is the temple of squeakball, made much better with major investments from the NBA and its sponsors. Since I’d already been there on a previous visit, I visited instead the Springfield Armory, which designed and manufactured the US Army’s long arms from 1794 to 1968, including the muskets of the Civil War, the famous ‘Springfield’ Rifle, and the more famous M-1 during WWII, when some 14,000 Springfield residents worked at the armory daily to churn out three million rifles a year.
And Mrs. Swami enjoyed visiting the Emily Dickinson House in nearby Amherst, Mass., where the now-famous poet lived and died in obscurity in the 1800s, leaving most of her poetry to be found in her desk drawer and later published posthumously.
THE REGIONAL EVENT AWARENESS: Great. Every bartender and waitress we ran into in Springfield was not only aware of the Regional going on but many of them knew something about DU and DU Hockey. You don’t necessarily find that in many areas of Denver. Bravo!
THE ARENA: Springfield’s Mass Mutual Center dates to the early 1970s, when it was built as an AHL (minor league) arena downtown. It has been modernized over the years, with a 2005 renovation including a convention center and an MGM casino surrounding the arena. Inside, there was an indoor fan fest, with kids’ games, food, school mascots, local promotions, tourney merchandise sales, and lots of selfie backgrounds for fans to enjoy. While the seating area was a bit dark, the arena size (6,800 seats – about the same size as Magness Arena) was the perfect size for an NCAA hockey regional. The atmosphere was festive, and the sight lines were both great and intimate. While ice quality was reportedly poor, all four schools had to deal with it. All in all, it was a very good experience for this fan.
THE FAN NUMBERS: Overall fan turnout was pretty good, with 4,400 in the house for the DU/Cornell Game on Easter Weekend – about two-thirds full. There seemed to be about 100 DU fans attending. When not at the games at Mass Mutual Center (the arena), most of them could be found congregating in the lobby bar of the Marriott (the team hotel) in downtown Springfield.
THE WAR STORIES: Wearing DU gear at the Marriott bar was an immediate ticket to amazing inside stories of Pioneer bravery after the UMass-Amherst double-overtime DU victory. Some 11 members of the DU team were reportedly administered fluids intravenously (IVs) after the game to combat dehydration and water weight losses that averaged between 10-15 pounds per player. That’s simply heroic stuff, folks.
SCHOOL SPIRIT: I know I’ve been on this soapbox for decades, but it bears repeating here. DU performs poorly when it comes to school spirit. College pep bands are the critical fan experience differentiator between college hockey and minor league hockey. It’s embarrassing to me (and many other alums/fans) to see other schools bring their bands to show their school spirit, while DU doesn’t even bother to try. The message we send to the college hockey world is that we don’t care, we’re cheap and our teams aren’t worth cheering on. Since DU axed its pep band in recent years as a cost-cutting, post-COVID-19 measure, there are almost no signs of school-funded spirit support of DU in recent NCAA hockey tournaments. I don’t expect DU to outdo the Big 10 schools or North Dakota, but there is no reason we can’t represent our school spirit at least as well as schools such as Quinnipiac, Omaha, or Michigan Tech. In Springfield, some DU fans waved generic yellow microfiber cleaning cloths – the kind you buy in bulk at Home Depot. There were no DU signs, no banners, no mascot, and no band. It was incredibly lame in comparison to the uniformed Cornell pep band, which roused the 800-ish Big Red fans and the entire crowd of 4,400 spectators.
I know that DU AD Josh Berlo must understand the power of school spirit to engage and bond a fanbase. Berlo had a solid pep band at Minnesota-Duluth and enjoyed some of the best ones in the country at Notre Dame and UMass-Amherst before his time at UMD. It’s high time DU develops a school spirit display that matches the quality of our teams and our university.
Prioritize it, benchmark, fund it, and get it done.
Great performance on the ice, Pios!
We’ll see you in St. Paul!
Puck Swami is the internet moniker of a longtime DU fan and alumnus. He shares his views periodically here at LetsGoDU.
It makes no sense that DU doesn’t have a pep band. They’ve got a music school. Pay students $100 a game to play. I think DU was the ONLY team in the 16 that did not have a pep band present. It is embarrassing.
Totally agree. I’ve been to Big 10 basketball games and if the band is connected to the sound system (I.e. Illinois), the sound is dynamic! I’m going to look into getting a petition drive started. This needs to change!!
Thanks for the regional review. Well done! My son & I are going to St. Paul. We went Columbus in 2005 when he was eight years old.
DU school spirit is minimized by an aura of cheapness. UT Arlington kept there marching band even though they dropped football in 1985. The landscape to attract students is a combination of Academics and Environment. Unfortunately, DU wants to act like D1 with a D3 environment
Have my Boone gear, ready for St. Paul.
No pep band, Boone dumped, no tailgate experience at DU, unable to get the Greek system out on a consistent basis, basketball team relegated to a high school gym, SID dept. that can’t get local media coverage, limited DU sports bar experience in the neighborhood, etc. etc.
How can you aspire to be the next Gonzaga, or even get in the west Coast Conference for non-hockey sports, with an overall sports experience like this?
I’m not saying any of this is easy, but the current situation seems as bad or worse than it’s ever been. Has the DU administration just waved a white flag?
And yet the Hockey team produces every year, I would say that’s money well spent 😉
Too cheap for a hockey band. How about a drum line
Well described Puck. Question
Would we have been able to get Boone or at least Boone signs into the Springfield arena?
The same question for St. Paul.
It’s become beyond frustrating when we brought Boone or Boone signs to a Championship event and then being told Boone must leave leave and or no signs allowed. We alums have spent much money and gone to great efforts to keep Boone involved for the sake of school spirit.
I had a run-in with Angel in Chicago. ( I think Angel was her name). Carrying a Boone sign to the entrance doors, she said not allowed. She tried to give me a 2” cowbell instead. I simply told her I don’t take orders from you.
Go Pios
No. DU is teeth-gnashingly hostile to the Boone character and they have clearly made that clear to the arenas where DU plays.
My sense of it is that Boone appearing in other city’s arenas is no longer a viable option, as the character has been quickly banned/removed from the venues, most recently in Boston in 2022. Moreover, the character has also been outright barred from DU-sponsored pre or post-game events. I don’t see a future way forward for the character anymore, unless there is a change of attitude from DU leadership, which I don’t see happening anytime soon.
Great insights as always Swami. What gets me is that the Chancellor changes, the AD changes, the SID changes and the jack-booted intransigence of the administration remains.
ScottA
Let’s not forget that the board kept Pioneers and the Athletic Department has branded parts of Magness Arena with “Pioneers’ and have an alternate ‘Pioneers’ hockey jersey. That was a huge ‘win’ for spirit and tradition. That has happened under this AD and Chancellor. That being said, we really do need a pep band for all our conference games and tournament/championship games in hockey and basketball.
There was consideration of not keeping the Pioneers name?!
Yes. Under former Chancellor Chopp there was a covert administration effort to replace Pioneers with Trailblazers. LetsGoDU rooted out the scheme and it was eventually stopped at the Board level.
I am at the men’s final four basketball venue watching the four teams practice. The pep bands are a major part of each of these teams practices, and the fan experience is awesome. Hard to believe DU won’t have a pep band at the Frozen Four.
That “Trailblazer” scandal was back in 2018, after DU had banned Boone from campus with a (now ironic) mask ban:
You can read about it here:
https://letsgodu.com/2018/01/10/breaking-trailblazers-du-administration-colluded-with-key-student-groups-and-staff-on-groundwork-for-name-mascot-change/