March 07, 2024 | OPINION | By Michael Braithwaite
On Feb. 17, students and general fans alike clamored into Ed Robson Arena to watch the then No.15/16-ranked Colorado College Hockey take on the No. 2 University of North Dakota Fighting Hawks.
The Saturday night showdown was the second in a two-game series between the two teams. The night before, CC had walloped the Hawks in a 7-1 beatdown, and Saturday’s game would again end in an authoritative Tiger victory.
Customarily, students began filling the Mike Slade Student Section seats – identified as sections 110 and 111 – over an hour before the game started. Although on Block Break, some noted that they showed up earlier than usual to claim a prime spot by the glass for the best view of the faceoff between the two teams.
But around 20 minutes before the puck dropped, the students in Section 111 were asked to relocate.
Anticipating a smaller student turnout due to the Block Break, CC sold general admission tickets in the section, a member of Campus Safety at the arena confirmed. Students who were sitting in purchased seats were forced to find empty ones in the adjacent Section 110, which only has four seats along the glass and was mostly full by the time of the relocation.
While this switch may not be new – CC Athletics confirmed via email that selling general admission tickets in Section 111 has been an ongoing practice over Block Breaks – it points to the troubling reality of CC Hockey: students do not matter as much as the financial bottom line.
The shift from playing at the Broadmoor World Arena to the on-campus Ed Robson Arena in 2021 was due to several factors. Although CC intended to build a new ice arena on campus for some time, an $8 million donation from Ed Robson ‘54 in 2016 helped move the project from a long-term to a short-term priority, as demonstrated in the 2015 and 2017campus master plans, respectively.
And that quick turnaround had significant impacts on the CC populous. To make way for the new arena, the college tore down a 3D arts building without a permanent alternative in place. Until the renovation of Honnen Ice Arena is complete, senior 3D art students cannot utilize the full extent of their department’s resources and programming during their entire academic career at CC.
But the perils of a few art students didn’t matter. What did was the college’s bottom line.
Moving CC hockey to an on-campus facility allowed the college to truly maximize the value it was investing in its most historic varsity sport. While CC had to split ticket and concession sale revenues with the World Arena, playing in an on-campus venue would allow it to collect a greater share of profits.
Additionally, Ed Robson’s 3,500-seat capacity is less than half that of the 7,750-seat World Arena, a move that was by design, said then-Ed Robson Executive Director Colin Bailey in a 2021 interview. This move, which Bailey said was to provide a more “intimate” fan experience, also allowed the college to artificially cap the availability of seats and, in turn, charge more for tickets.
But while students take up seats in Sections 110 and 111, CC can only make so much off ticket sales on a given night. Students who show up early can score a spot by the glass and sit for free in a seat that could be sold to a general fan for at least $100. As of now, the college is not considering the free student seats in its financial equation, but there may come a time when that could change.
By selling general admission tickets in the student section over Block Breaks, CC is clearly thinking about maximizing the value of those seats. Many schools, such as the University of Colorado Boulder, charge students for a season ticket pass for their more popular varsity sports; there’s no telling when CC may consider doing the same for hockey.
And it is truly a shame that the student-driven atmosphere – arguably the most advertised aspect of the arena – may soon succumb to the same financial desires that brought hockey on campus in the first place, especially when the team is rapidly gaining popularity among the student populous.
But we should have known this was an inevitability. In recent years, the college has progressively operated like a business, prioritizing financially driven decisions over the student experience. Look no further than the removal of overnight trips from the Priddy Experience or the re-implementation of the (often ignored) three-year housing requirement after the pandemic, in addition to the aforementioned plight of 3D art students for the sake of hockey-based profits.
Hockey Head Coach Kris Mayotte calls Ed Robson Arena “the heart of campus” in a video montage shown before home games that highlights clips of students cheering. Assistant Athletic Director for Marketing and Senior Woman Administrator Jessica Bennett said that the students’ energy “changes the atmosphere within the building” in a recent interview. These sentiments, while nice to hear, are beginning to ring hollow.
For a Saturday night home game, against the No. 2 team in the country, the college moved students to the adjacent section with less room along the glass and less ability to change the atmosphere of the building, all to marginally increase its bottom line.
CC put money over heart, and we were foolish, as the students, to believe they would do otherwise.