The State of Affairs in Hartford Hockey

I don't know why it took this long for this article to come my way ... Must be the travel schedule.

I must say that I love it when Jeff Jacobs of the Hartford Courant decides he wants to talk about the Hartford Wolf*Pack. The only time there is any good coverage about Hartford's AHL team in the Courant is when the team loses ... It always seems they are the front page of the sports section when they have a defeat, rather than a victory. This year the Wolf*Pack set a record in points for the team, which meant they didn't lose all that often ... which means they did not get front page coverage all that much.

The media coverage of the Hartford Wolf*Pack is terrible. When I was an intern for Madison Square Garden-Connecticut, I had the opportunity to work during the Big East Women's Championship Tournament at the Hartford Civic Center (now the XL Center). After UConn defeated Rutgers in the championship game, the Director of Public Relations mused, "If I could get half of this media to come to when the Wolf*Pack won the Calder Cup in 2000, I would have been so happy."

Jeff Jacobs is one of the Hartford media culprits. The only time he talks hockey is when there are rumors of an NHL team coming to Hartford, or something to do with Whalers reunions, or how poor attendance is at Wolf*Pack games. With that said ... I agree with everything Jacobs says in this article.

Promotions of the Wolf*Pack, and every other event at the XL Center has been very poor since Northland/AEG took over management of the facility. This is disturbing, considering the partnership has taken on all financial risks associated with their occupation (which is why they got the management agreement from the CDA to begin with). Their complacency, partnered with the utter joke of the Hartford Whalers Booster Club (yes, a hockey team that doesn't exist still has a booster club with dues paying members), it seems as though the people in the greatest position to make a difference in Hartford are not the best people to do it.

This post will probably cost me a job with Northland/AEG or the XL Center ... I sent them my resume ... I maintained connections with the spillovers from the MSG-CT management team, and nothing came of it ... I have tons of ideas, that they have no desire to hear anyway.