What had been taken for granted in the 1990s and early 2000s is now appreciated given the work it has taken to get back to this point. A record crowd of 10,894 for the second game of the Badgers series on Feb. 1 brought total attendance for the sweep to 21,641.

Connor Kurth and Cal Thomas celebrate a goal against Wisconsin in front of the packed home crowd cheering them on. (Photo courtesy of Minnesota Athletics)

“For all of us who work in the athletic department and on the external side, where we’re not on the ice every day, having a game-day environment like that is what we aspire to,” said Mike Wierzbicki, senior associate athletic director for the Gophers. “Providing an atmosphere that fans can enjoy and that gives you goosebumps.”

Telling the story of attendance and fan interest at what is now known as 3M at Mariucci Arena, isn’t as simple as throwing out a bunch of attendance figures.

That helps — the average of 9,769 tickets distributed this season is the highest it has been since 2015-16 and is up from 7,867 in 2021-22 — but it fails to address the most important thing: The electricity, as Motzko called it, that has returned to the 32-year-old building.

That is what so often had seemed to be missing until the last few seasons. A student section that wasn’t filled, or season tickets that had been sold to corporations or the general public, but weren’t used. The tickets might have been distributed, but that doesn’t mean sections were full or that the building had life.

The Dropoff
Motkzo was part of two NCAA championship teams during his time as an assistant on Gophers coach Don Lucia’s staff from 2001-05 and returned to replace Lucia in 2018 after spending 13 seasons at St. Cloud State. Motzko remembers the importance placed on getting fans back upon his return.

Bob Motzko has coached the Gophers men’s hockey team since 2018-19. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

“It was a major discussion at the administrative level, and they did a lot of things behind the scenes, too, on students and ticket prices,” he said. “It was the perfect storm. I always call it the breakup of the WCHA. That took a decade for people to forgive. I think we’re through that.”

As members of the Big Ten, the Gophers were forced to make the move from the WCHA to the Big Ten when the conference began to sponsor men’s ice hockey in the 2013-14 season. This was triggered by Penn State’s decision to start playing Division I hockey and enabled the Big Ten to have a six-team conference. It resulted in major upheaval for college hockey.

The Gophers had long-established WCHA rivalries with North Dakota, Minnesota Duluth and St. Cloud State. Throw in Minnesota State Mankato and Wisconsin, and five of Minnesota’s nine conference opponents were within driving distance. The Civic Center and then the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul were the regular hosts of the WCHA Final Five.

Suddenly, all of that was gone, and while tickets were still being sold to Gophers games, the amount of nights on which Mariucci felt like the place to be dwindled. This despite the fact the Gophers finished in first place in the Big Ten each of the conference’s first four seasons and went to the championship game of the 2014 Frozen Four.

Mike Wierzbicki, University of Minnesota senior associate athletic director. (Photo courtesy of Minnesota Athletics)

Wierzbicki, who grew up in Minnesota, arrived at the university as the assistant athletic director of marketing for the 2016-17 season. The Gophers won the Big Ten before losing in the NCAA regional semifinals to Notre Dame. There was an average of 9,595 tickets distributed as the Gophers qualified for the NCAA tournament for the fifth time in six seasons under Lucia.

The figure plummeted to 8,726 in 2017-18 as the Gophers finished fifth in the conference and did not make the NCAA tournament in Lucia’s final season. Motzko was hired to replace Lucia, but the work was just starting.

“There was a lack of WCHA rivalries and some changes there were not the most well-received things,” Wierzbicki said. “We also knew our team success wasn’t where we are nowadays and we didn’t perform on the ice the way we’re accustomed to.”

That wasn’t the only issue. The other was that a season-ticket waiting list that dated to the 1990s was “pretty much exhausted,” by Lucia’s penultimate season. That meant that when season-ticket holders didn’t renew for 2017-18, the athletic department was left with no built-in place to turn to replace them.

That wasn’t going to be easy, especially with the general public and corporations. The Gophers had the hockey market largely to themselves when the new Mariucci opened in 1993, the same year the NHL and North Stars left for Dallas. But by the time the season-ticket waiting list was gone, the NHL had returned with the Wild in St. Paul, the Twins were playing in a new stadium (Target Field) and the Vikings were opening U.S. Bank Stadium.

The sports dollar only goes so far and fans only want to attend so many events. Tickets to Gophers games weren’t cheap and there also was the issue of students no longer packing the place.

The road back
The low point came in March 2019. The Gophers played host to Michigan in the quarterfinals of the Big Ten tournament. Minnesota swept the Wolverines in two games, but the headline was the attendance.

The Gophers’ 3-2 overtime victory in the opener drew an announced crowd of 1,835 fans. Numerous photos from inside the building indicated that figure might have been generous. According to a 2023 Star Tribune story, the Gophers had an average of only 5,325 tickets scanned per game during Motzko’s first season.

The average number of tickets distributed in 2019-20 decreased to 8,100 during the season in which the COVID-19 pandemic caused the season to be canceled before the end of the Big Ten tournament. Fans were not allowed into games the following season, and the low point of 7,867 for ticket distribution came in 2021-22.

The general public season-ticket sales for that season was 3,991 and the student season-ticket figure was 1,498. The Gophers, however, won the Big Ten and made it to the Frozen Four before losing to Minnesota State in the semifinals.

As disappointing as the attendance figures might have been, things were about to get a lot better. Some of it was in the control of Wierzbicki and his team and some of it was timing.

“Once students got through Covid, there was an opportunity to springboard off that and we saw them more interested in coming to games across the board,” Wierzbicki said.

Ticket distribution has been on the upswing for the past three seasons. (Photo courtesy of Minnesota Athletics)

The distribution of tickets has been on the rise the past three seasons: 9,129 in 2022-23 as the Gophers lost the NCAA title game after finishing first in the Big Ten; 9,221 in 2023-24 in which Motzko’s team lost to Boston University in the NCAA regional finals after finishing third in the conference; and 9,769 this season. The non-student season-ticket sales have been over 4,500 for two consecutive years and student season tickets have been over 1,500 for three years in a row.

“You have felt it ever since Covid with the students,” Motzko said. “If you remember, right before Covid, student attendance was falling all over the country in every sport. Then, the craziest thing is now we’ve got this uptick going on. For us, there’s no question. Our student section brings our building to life. We have such great diehard fans. They love that young energy. You can’t fool our fans, they want good hockey. But when you get that electricity in this building, I think it’s the greatest atmosphere in one of the greatest college sports.”

Wierzbicki points to the work done by the marketing, digital and social teams in the athletic department.

“We had to make it fun, right?” he said. “A cool and fun thing to do. So that played into giveaways, free food and creating demand and interest. All of those things need to come together. … But it all goes back to the post-Covid buzz and once there was reinvigorated energy to springboard off of that.”

Both season- and single-game ticket prices were dropped in different areas of the arena and a strategy was devised to get more fans into the building. One of those has been moving the faceoff time for Saturday home games to 5 p.m. That has helped the Gophers get more groups, such as youth hockey teams, and families to come to games and get home at a decent hour.

Giveaways also have helped.

“Our marketing team has done a good job of thinking outside the box,” Wierzbicki said. “We’ve done more unique things that students found value in. It might be a scarf giveaway or a unique stocking cap.”

Of course, “it doesn’t move the needle unless the team is successful,” Wierzbicki said.

The Gophers will enter their weekend series at Michigan in second place in the Big Ten, five points behind Michigan State with six games remaining. Their final regular-season home series will be Feb. 21-22 against Ohio State. The Gophers are a Big Ten-best 12-2-2 at home this season.

It feels like old times at Mariucci.

“You go back to (the Doug) Woog days and Lucia days, it’s been that before,” Motzko said. “We’re not creating anything new. Things go in cycles. We’ve always said, ‘Our fans haven’t gone anywhere, we’ve got to give them a reason to come back.’”

Both the team and the marketing department have done just that.

The post ‘Electric’ Crowds Are Back appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

But wait. For the current 2023-24 season a sixth Minnesota Division I program has vaulted into immediate contention, with the University of St. Thomas opening the season with a startling split with St. Cloud State and taking the then-No. 1 ranked Gophers to overtime before falling 6-5 before more than 11,000 fans at Xcel Energy Center.

The WCHA is, of course, no longer in operation. It shattered when Minnesota went off to help start a Big Ten hockey conference, prompting Minnesota-Duluth and St. Cloud State to start up with the new, and supremely powerful, National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC) and leaving MSU-Mankato and Bemidji State in what was left of the WCHA. That league changed its name to the CCHA, recapturing the Central Collegiate Hockey Association call letters forced by Michigan when it branched off from the WCHA to form its “bus league.”

While St. Thomas, under proven mastermind Rico Blasi as head coach, raised all its sports to Division I status, nobody expected the Tommies to be the surprise of the state’s college hockey stalwarts this quickly.

Sophomore Ben Steeves scored a shootout goal as UMD solved a 2-2 tie with Michigan Tech. (MHM Photo / John Gilbert)

Regardless, we have to turn back to Minnesota Duluth to find the new king of bargain promotions in college hockey. The Bulldogs started off this season unbeaten through three games, while giving their fans the benefit of a bargain for their ticket prices. In two of their first three games, the Bulldogs skated to ties, then through scoreless overtimes, and then through shootouts before prevailing to turn those deadlocks into symbolic victories.

A young student, new to big-time hockey, saw the teams prepare for the shootout after UMD and Michigan Tech tied 2-2 in the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame game and asked: “Do they get a point if they win the shootout?” He was told no, that there was no tangible benefit, no points, no indication of winning, but only giving the fans the satisfaction of seeing the game end in something other than a tie.

He was unimpressed at the answer, but as the shootout saw Ben Steeves score a goal, and then freshman Anthony Menghini clinch it 2-1, the fans, all of whom stood in their AMSOIL Arena seats, erupted with a roar that would do a league playoff championship proud. The young man acknowledged, “OK, now I get it.”

A week later, in their first official non-conference game against Northern Michigan, UMD started with a 3-0 lead before allowing three unanswered goals and needing to rally to go back ahead 4-3 on Steeve’s second goal of the night, then fell behind 5-4. That left it up to Menghini, the freshman, to score another pivotal goal, tying the game 5-5 with 2:58 remaining. Then the Bulldogs and Wildcats sparred through six rounds of the shootout before Matthew Perkins, another freshman, scored to claim another 2-1 shutout victory. Again, however, it was not a victory, just an official tie. But don’t tell the 5,947 screaming fans that!

They went home happy and, thanks to the return of a previous promotional deal with area Culver’s restaurants, every fan turning in a ticket stub whenever UMD scores five goals or more gets a free scoop of frozen custard. How can you beat having extra-time hockey and free frozen custard after your team won the game — as far as you’re concerned.

The next night, UMD kept rolling through Northern Michigan in a second penalty-fest that saw a repeat of double-digit penalty calls with each team scoring three power-play goals and the Bulldogs getting an 8-5 victory and a sweep.

“These are games that test your inner strength,” UMD coach Scott Sandelin said afterward. “I thought we handled the adversity a little better tonight than in the first game, and fortunately our power play was clicking.”

Fears of struggling to score were washed away in that series sweep, thanks to Steeves and a couple of freshmen, starting a trend that seems to have engaged the whole team, which Sandelin will welcome as he tries to take his team off to the NCAA tournament in quest of his fourth national title at UMD.

Snuggerud is back for the Gophers
Down Interstate 35 a couple of hours, Bob Motzko has assembled a flashy crop of talent led by Jimmy Snuggerud, who started off hot after several of his classmates turned pro after last season’s near miss at NCAA time. Motzko got his way by narrowing the Olympic-sized, 200-by-100-foot ice sheet at 3M Arena at Mariucci to a hybrid width, now 200-by-89 feet. With an inability to use the wider ice surface favored by the late Herb Brooks and Doug Woog to win his first national title with a dressing room filled with NHL draft choices, maybe a narrower rink will help.

At the start, Snuggerud made the plan work. After scoring the overtime winner against upstart St. Thomas to climax a rally from a 4-2 deficit in the third period, Snuggerud brought his teammates back to Mariucci for the second game and scored twice for a 2-0 lead that the Gophers expanded with an empty-net goal for a 3-0 victory and a sweep.

The media-heavy Twin Cities promotional backing may have helped the Gophers gain the No 1 ranking in the nation despite losing four players to early NHL contracts. But Snuggerud makes it appear they won’t be missed as the Gophers try to repeat as Big Ten champions.

Early adversity for St. Cloud State 
The St. Cloud State Huskies, who rose up from a disappointing season to make a run at the NCAA tournament last spring, lost some big scorers. But coach Brett Larson has proven to be a master at fashioning his talent into contenders as the season progresses. The Huskies were the first victim of St. Thomas, losing 5-4 in overtime, and had to go to the Mendota Heights home of the Tommies to battle for a 1-0 victory and a split.

But next came a huge rivalry series against MSU Mankato, which spotted the Huskies the first two goals before roaring back to tie the game 2-2 in the second period and beat St. Cloud 3-2 on Adam Eisele’s overtime goal. The next night, Mankato stung the Huskies 5-1 for a sweep.

New coach leads Minnesota State Mankato
Minnesota State Mankato suffered what seemed like crushing setbacks when Mike Hastings left to become head coach at Wisconsin, and several of his top Mavericks entered the transfer portal to go with him. New head coach Luke Strand, however, has regenerated the Mavericks right from the start.

They were heartened by the return to form of Sam Morton, a fifth-year captain who went out after only 10 games with a knee injury last season. Alex Tracy looks solid in goal. The Mavericks have retained a great tradition, as they blocked 23 shots in the 5-1 game against St. Cloud State.

Beavers host Ice Breaker Tournament
Bemidji State is another team joining Northern Michigan and Michigan Tech in trying to unseat MSU Mankato as CCHA champion, and the Beavers got an early taste of the competition by co-hosting the Ice Breaker Tournament with North Dakota to open the season. That came after losing 5-2 at Minnesota in an exhibition opener. Back home, Bemidji State dropped a 4-3 overtime game to Wisconsin and the reappearance of old rival Hastings on the visiting bench.

The next night, Army came to Bemidji’s sparkling Sanford Center and the Beavers made a determined rally to tie the Cadets 2-2 on Eric Pohlkamp’s goal at 7:30 of the third period. Lleyton Roed scored the game-winner at 0:59 of overtime for a 3-2 triumph. Roed also had a goal against Wisconsin, when the Badgers outshot Bemidji 61-19 and only the 57 saves by goaltender Mattias Scholl kept the Beavers in the game.

Toms roll in game one
The state’s newest DI team, the St. Thomas Tommies, served notice of their intentions not only against in-state rivals like Minnesota and St. Cloud State, but challenging the CCHA as a legitimate contender. Blasi established his skills in building Miami of Ohio into a solid team in the NCHC. After he was let go by Miami he was a natural choice to lead the Tommies into DI. So, his team’s early successes this year shouldn’t be a surprise.

Benefitting by the transfer portal, Blasi has assembled speed and talent that went on display in the season-opener at St. Cloud State. Goals by Jake Braccini, Cameron Recchi, Luke Manning and Matthew Gleason got the Tommies into overtime, where former Duluth East star Ryder Donovan scored at 1:11 to win it 5-4. It won’t be easy for St. Thomas to keep knocking off powerful rivals, but Blasi has made a name for himself by sending tough, tenacious teams over the boards.

Now that St. Thomas is planning a new arena for its future, about all they need is to find an ice cream shop — or maybe a St. Paul pizza joint — and come up with a promotion whenever they score five goals.

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