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Rowdy Fans Vs. Noise Famine At NCAA Hockey Regional Sites

FARGO, N.D. (AP) — The NCAA wants to take home-ice advantage away from its regional hockey tournaments. Yet, the effort to secure neutral sites reveals an imbalance between an electrifying atmosphere and hundreds of empty seats.

The West Regional in Fargo was a mini-home game for the University of North Dakota on Friday, played in a 5,000-seat arena rather than its 12,000-seat facility 70 miles away. Hundreds of UND fans showed up five hours before their team's faceoff to stake out standing room-only space on the floor and a two-level riser behind each of the nets.

Meanwhile, the sounds of players in a Northeast Regional game between Minnesota and Minnesota-Duluth could be heard Friday above the sparse crowd in a 10,000-seat arena in Manchester, New Hampshire.

"There's a balancing act every year," UND athletic director Brian Faison, chair of the NCAA men's ice hockey committee, said Saturday. "You try to come up with the best venue that you can while at the same time keeping in mind the geography and getting teams from the same area."

The topic will be up for discussion after this season, Faison said, because the regional sites for the next two years have not been decided.

The ice hockey committee selects the sites, based on bids submitted by venues in conjunction with schools or conferences. In UND's case, the school put in two separate bids — one with officials from its home facility, Ralph Engelstad Arena in Grand Forks, and one with Scheels Arena in Fargo.

Given the proximity to UND's campus and the thousands of alumni who live in North Dakota's largest city, tickets were a rare commodity. Fans camped out overnight in the hopes of getting in on an allotment of 150 tickets that were made available Thursday morning.

It cost $79 for a three-game package and $59 for the championship game. Earlier in the week, some tickets on Internet broker sites were going for more than $1,000.

Fargo resident Andy Kalbus is a UND season ticket holder who was leery about buying standing room-only tickets, but said it was his "only way into the building." He said it was worth packing into the risers with about 400 people, the approximate number of standing-room tickets sold on each end.

"It's not too bad," he said. "You have to stand on your tippy-toes to see if the puck is in the goal over here, but for this size of an arena, it's fine."

Quinnipiac coach Rand Pecknold, whose team drew UND in Friday's semifinal, said the atmosphere trumped what could have been a more favorable climate for his team in another state.

"Having been on the committee before, it is a battle to keep neutral sites and obviously this was not a neutral site," Pecknold said. "But hey, we were the 14 seed so you have to go on the road and take your lumps. So if we would have gotten a little bit higher up and had a better regular season we wouldn't have to come here and play. But I thought it was great."

Fargo wasn't the only city that had the potential for home ice. The East Regional is being held in Providence, Rhode Island, where Brown University is hosting. Providence College qualified for the tournament, which began Saturday. The Midwest Regional, which started Saturday, was awarded to Notre Dame because the only bid came from the South Bend, Indiana, school; the Irish did not qualify for the tournament.

Asked whether some venues view the regional as a losing proposition, Faison said, "That could be a possibility. It's a bid process and there are some minimums in terms of financing. I think we just need to assess the format and make the best determination on what we do from here."

(© Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

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