ESPN The Magazine reaches out to Hockey Wilderness

The cost of a Wild game is ridiculous when compared to on-ice success. Yet another ticket price raise this year, despite not making the playoffs. Likely due to the fact that fans still love the team, love hockey, and just want to be there. The window however, is closing. Eventually the Wild are going to blow right past the equilibrium point of supply and demand, and their sell-out streak is going to end abruptly.

Fan relations are some of the best in the game. The team reaches out to community groups, makes public appearances, has give aways that fans value… not sure exactly what else counts as fan relations, but the organization continues to market well and remains popular. Will be interesting to see how they respond if the honeymoon ever ends.

The fans have certainly soured on the players. A coach with a system built to win and built to entertain is at the helm, and the players cannot keep up. Richards has exposed the lack of true talent on the team that Jacques Lemaire hid very well for a long time. Of course Richards got high marks. Fans love that he is new, and they love that he is attempting to install an exciting game. Fans here are not stupid. They know that the coach can only do so much, and then it is up to the players to execute. Fletcher needs to give Richards some new players, because the guys on the roster right now are not going to cut it.

Without getting too specific, the players brought in by the old regime are not suited for the new system, and Chuck Fletcher needs to revamp the team without the time or patience needed for a re-building effort. If the team misses the playoffs again, fans will grow more displeased with the on ice product, and if the losing continues for too long, the discontent will spill over into fan relations, etc. No one wants to pay $80 a seat, $20 to park, and $8 a beer to watch a team lose more than they win.

During the recent STH conference call, it was announced that for 10 games this coming season, concession prices will be rolled back. Likely the fans will enjoy that while attending that game, but then question why when they return for the following game, the prices jumped back up. I see it backfiring and creating a PR mess.

The fact is that the economy sucks, and fans want to be able to watch their team play. But at roughly $200 to attend a game for two people, how many games can the average Joe afford to attend? Especially when they can go to the Vikings game or Twins game for much, much less.

We’ve gotten to know a lot of the other season ticket holders around us as well as the X staff—aisle attendants, beer guys, etc… Great people, all. We love our current location in the arena, and don’t want to give that up just yet. The people and the location were the main reason for renewing for another year.

That said, the product on the ice and the prognosis for next year does not give me much hope in the near future. We LOVE ice hockey, and the NHL is ice hockey at its best (most of the time). That helps, but there is a ton of ice hockey to be watched in Minnesota. I remember the lockout; I missed the NHL, but I’m pretty sure I saw about the same amount of ice hockey for a fraction of the price. Although it didn’t reach the skill level at which NHLers play, it was enough to make it through the winter.

I don’t think I’m alone in the feeling—at least fiscally—that this franchise has little time to put a winner on the ice. It is too bad, really, because if they had 5-7 years to really break things down and start from scratch, the team most likely would be better in the long run. I’ll be happy if they did that, but the reality of the economy means I can’t pay for it [at current prices] at this time—with season tickets, anyway.

The Xcel Energy Center is a 10 year old building. While a fantastic venue in which to watch a game, the concessions and video offerings are lackluster, especially when compared with Target Field. The food at the X is overpriced and underdelivers. There is no reason we can’t have some good locally sourced options, much like Target Field did with the Murray’s steak sandwich, Loon Cafe chili, JD Hoyt’s pork chop on a stick and Vincent burger. Oh, and the ridiculously huge HD scoreboard at Target Field really make you wonder why the X has such puny, SD screens on their scoreboard. So yeah, it’s showing its age and is in need of an overhaul. That said, the staff at the X is second to none. Everyone is friendly and happy to help and appreciates their job, no mouth-breathing teenage yokels like you get in so many retail spaces.

Now, the on-ice product? Miserable. That’s the only way to put it. Sure, there were worse teams, but with the money we put into the pockets of the ownership and the breaks given to the new regime, they NEED to succeed this season, or the bandwagon will empty in short order. The team is already having issues filling season tickets, and the arena can no longer save them, not with the new ballpark in Minneapolis.

So, if you can spend $200 for a Twins game with a newer arena, better food options, outside in the sun in the summer and a better on-field product or $200 for a 10 year old hockey rink with terrible concessions and a less than mediocre on-ice product, which are you going to attend in a bad economy?

Does the X need a new HD scoreboard? Yes.

Does the X need better concessions? Absolutely. I usually eat before going to the game for 2 reasons: price and quality. When running late a couple times this year I did grab food at the arena, and let me tell you I haven’t had a cheeseburger that good since the last time I flew Sun Country. Headwaters is there if you have tickets in the club level (which I did), but at $34.95/seat it’s not a realistic place to eat unless you happen to be entertaining and putting the bill on the corporate AmEx.

The issues with the on-ice product are well documented, and the possible resolutions are not obvious (or the other 29 teams in the league would all be doing them). The previous front-office staff drafted poorly and made some horrible roster choices which will take quite a bit of time to correct, unless some amazing deals can be made. Still, despite the lacking record for the team this year we had a home record that would keep fans happy. 25-12-4 meant that most nights the fans who showed up got to see the team leave the ice with a win in hand.

So all that said — the X as a facility is still one of the best in the league. Having now traveled to a number of other arenas around the league I appreciate little things like having entrance gates on all 4 corners of the arena and having the arena connected to several nearby parking ramps through the St Paul skyway system. The wide concourses are easy to navigate and the open architecture allows you to have a sight line to the ice through most of the arena. The west end of the building gives you an amazing view of downtown St Paul though a giant glass exterior — there are 17 minutes to kill between periods, and I’ve spent hours enjoying that view. The account services staff is great — I recently was able to move from having a single seat in club level to getting a pair of tickets in lower level (on the single-attack end) just by exchanging a few emails with my account rep. Really all of the arena staff is great – in particular the ushers are good about holding people from going down to their seats until there is a break in the action.

And of course the best part of attending games at the X — you can experience the energy of the crowd and the occasional goal celebration without having to put up with the Wild’s TV broadcast team.

-Eric Spaeth