Oilers game

[cannon_fodder]

My fam and I had several events to choose from last night (how I loathe the "there's nothing to do in this town" crowd).  A party, prairie home companion, rocky horror, college football, and the hockey game were at the forefront.   We chose hockey because we could/would take the boy.

It was a good game (for 2 periods).  The venue works GREAT for hockey.  The noise was loud but not echo-y (?) or too loud (PA).  The scoreboard was crisp and well done. The replays were very crisp.  The light board around the arena was well done.  I've been to Minnesota Stars games and this was on par for professionalism (for the most part).

Some notes:

1) Kathy Taylor got booed, twice.  Once when she was on the ice for a ceremonial puck drop, again when she appeared on the scoreboard video for something or other.  The fact that hockey fans loathe nearly any politicians interfering with their sport makes me chuckle.

2) The vendors need practice.  I went to one run by the BOk center (a generic one) and it took 12 minutes AFTER I was at the front of the line to get nachos, a brat, and a Choc beer.  I'd say $4 worth of merchandise I was paying $16.50 for (not complaining, it is an arena after all).  If I was selling something for 4x it's actual value that crap would be over the counter so fast.

3) Tulsa is not good.  I am not a hockey expert, but I know enough about the sport and have seen enough games played to know the basics. And Tulsa is not good.  We fail to control the puck over the blue line, we seem to cautious (constant penalty kill state of mind), and our goalie (St. Pierre) gave up too many rebounds off shots (3 were put back in for goals).

Not good.

4) The fights were good.  2 real fights (gloves off, circle, wack wack wack! One during a promo, they weren't even playing hockey), 1 scuffle,a nd a few push and shoving matches.  Tulsa lost the evenly matched fight, but our 5'6" guy beat the hell out of a giant on their team.  So, ahh, yeah.

5) If there were 16,982 people at that game, the arena must seat 25,000 for hockey.  I call BS.  I'd say it was 2/3 full AT BEST.  There was a good crowd there, I would have guessed as much as half full.   It was a good crowd for minor league hockey, but that number is retarded.

The BOK center seats 17,096 for hockey.  There is absolutely NO WAY in hell every seat but for 100 was occupied or even sold, no way.  Sometimes they can claim "seats sold" and some went unoccupied, but in this instance that just won't work:



Faceoff was supposed to be at 7:30, this picture was taken just after the national anthem at 8:00 and just prior to the start (ceremony to "open" the season, the new arena, etc..  Note the players in the box = after the anthem, the score is 0-0 and the flag remains on the marquee lighting).  Most people were there, the aisle are mostly clear in this picture and where you can see into the walkways they are not crowded either.  It may have filled in a little, but that picture is pretty representational.

Someone tell me with a straight face that there are 17,000 people there.

6) Did I mention that arena is awesome?  Debate the merits if you want, but the product is top notch.

[edit]Tulsa World Photo.  Article can be found at:
http://www.tulsaworld.com/sports/article.aspx?articleID=20081026_235_B9_h785143
[/edit]

[cannon_fodder]

Oh, and we parked for free at a meter near Cincinnati and 7th.  Just north of the OneOK garage.  So if there were 17,000 people there, parking as an issue is a stupid point of discussion.

[Wrinkle]

The first thing which came to my mind here is it's not often one can walk up to a 'sold out' event, buy three tickets and get centerline seats.

There's three more, two rows down.

[bmuscotty]

The CHL (and many other leagues) will report the attendance as SEATS SOLD. Not how many are really in the arena. They will say 16,982 were there even if it was really only say like 5,000 or whatever. Some on the Oilers boards said it was pretty full.. they were guessing 15,000. Still it ranked as the 2nd largest CHL crowd on record.

[Porky]

The empty seats were probably people that were looking for a place to park.

[TurismoDreamin]

The mayor had a team at the Tulsa Run called "Team Taylor." Of course, as you would expect, her team was laggy and slow to progress.....thought it would add to your amusement.

On another note, the Tulsa Run is a nearly 10,000 person event. Parking was ample here as well...so much so in fact that there was still plenty of parking within 2 blocks of the starting line.

[Hoss]

quote:Originally posted by Porky

The empty seats were probably people that were looking for a place to park.

Hmm..funny, my best friend got to the arena 15 minutes before the game and had no problem finding a place to park (4th level of the CC parkade).

Debunked.

[Hoss]

quote:Originally posted by cannon_fodder

Oh, and we parked for free at a meter near Cincinnati and 7th.  Just north of the OneOK garage.  So if there were 17,000 people there, parking as an issue is a stupid point of discussion.

Exactly.  I went to an NHL game last season in St. Louis where they announced a sellout at the ScottTrade.  It wasn't even close.

Most sports leagues report attendance based on tickets sold, not butts in the seat.  This would also include comp tickets (tickets made available in groups to companies to give away).  But, higher leagues are a little more restrictive on this due to lost revenue.

BTW, I was the one on the Oiler forum who made the 15000 estimate.  I stand by it.

[TheTed]

If there were 15,000 at the game then I guess about 7,000 people were in the bathroom during that photo.

[Hoss]

quote:Originally posted by TheTed

If there were 15,000 at the game then I guess about 7,000 people were in the bathroom during that photo.

Since the photo was taken pre game, you are probably about right on the numbers.  A bunch at the concession stands, and I can attest to that.  The east stands on the ground level were packed.

There were a lot of stragglers.  Always are at hockey games.  It's always best to judge attendance at a hockey game visually at midway through the second period.  That's what I did.  I was usually pretty close in estimating butts in the seats at the CC.  I'm not going on record to say 15k for sure, but I can tell you that there were not many seats in the lower bowl aside from the clubseating that were empty.

[cannon_fodder]

You are honestly saying that 90% of the seats were occupied?

I have to disagree.  The "upper deck" was never more than 50%.  The free T-Shirts up there didn't even get snatched up until the end of the first period.  My section was probably 75% (right next to the ONEOK club, which was less dense than my own).  The box seats were very sparse.

Go to that arena for an event that actually fills all the seats.  I'm sorry, they may have sold that many tickets (counting club and box seating as "sold" for every event") and 5,000 people didn't show up.  But it was not even close to a sellout for butts in seats.

[SXSW]

I'm planning on going to the OU-TU basketball game at the BOK in December, wonder if it will be full?  TU has a good following in Tulsa and it will be their first game (one of many to come I'm sure) in the BOK Center, and OU could easily be a Top 10 team.  I hope we can start some kind of annual tourney like OKC has with the All-College, something that includes TU and either OU or OSU, or even Arkansas.

[TheTed]

quote:Originally posted by SXSW

I'm planning on going to the OU-TU basketball game at the BOK in December, wonder if it will be full?  TU has a good following in Tulsa and it will be their first game (one of many to come I'm sure) in the BOK Center, and OU could easily be a Top 10 team.  I hope we can start some kind of annual tourney like OKC has with the All-College, something that includes TU and either OU or OSU, or even Arkansas.

I doubt it'll be full. Probably 10-12k at the most. OU doesn't have too many basketball fans.

[bmuscotty]

Attendance for the 10/31 Oilers games was listed at 2,952. Imagine how that must have looked. More blue seats than people. See how they do tonight against Wichita.

[TheTed]

quote:Originally posted by bmuscotty

Attendance for the 10/31 Oilers games was listed at 2,952. Imagine how that must have looked. More blue seats than people. See how they do tonight against Wichita.

That number of fans isn't surprising. I'm more surprised they didn't greatly inflate the number. Even at the convention center they seemed to have no problem publishing ludicrous numbers.