Syracuse Crunch owner Howard Dolgon has repeatedly made a bold proclamation as the Nov. 22 Frozen Dome Classic draws closer.

Dolgon thinks Syracuse is in the running, pound-for-pound, for the best sports city in the country, and adds that playing American Hockey League hockey in the Carrier Dome will only help that case.

The Crunch is looking to break the indoor hockey attendance record of 28,183, with close to 25,000 tickets sold as of late Wednesday afternoon, according to a Crunch spokesperson. But there will be something missing from the game.

The SU students, who pack the Dome for basketball and football games and give the city much of its sports status, will likely be fewer in number because they’ll be heading home for Thanksgiving break in the days leading up to the event.

“We’ve been working with the university as far as getting our message out,” Dolgon said. “But where as in the past we’d go directly to the fraternities and to the different organizations there, they’re not going to be on campus.”

On top of that, a number of students will be heading to New York City to watch the basketball team play in the 2K Classic at Madison Square Garden, Otto’s Army President Sean Fernandez said.

“Because it’s over beak, it’s a little bit tough,” Fernandez said. “It’s something we’ve promoted a few times on social media and we can still continue to do so because it is an awesome opportunity to see hockey in the Dome, which has never been done before.”

SU hasn’t had much involvement in the planning and hosting of the event, acting as more of a landlord, Dolgon said. The Classic features the Crunch and the Utica Comets with an undercard of Division III Utica College and Oswego State.

There were talks to get the SU women’s ice hockey team involved, which would have created a stronger tie to the school. But its schedule was already in place and changing it proved to be too problematic, Dolgon and Syracuse head coach Paul Flanagan said.

“Next year’s (schedule) is already set and to try to change the weekend, which I did with three different teams, became problematic,” Flanagan said, using Penn State as an example. “Their whole schedule is predicated on football. They couldn’t do it and that’s just an example.”

Flanagan tried to make a change with Robert Morris — which the team is visiting next weekend — to have games Thursday and Friday instead of Friday and Saturday, and fit in an exhibition after the Crunch. But the ice needs to be broken down immediately afterward, and Robert Morris’ rink also has to be booked around a year in advance, he said.

Even getting a date for the game took more than a year and Nov. 22 became a reality because the football and basketball teams would be out of town, Pete Sala, SU’s senior associate athletics director for facilities, said.

Comets President Robert Esche predicted the attendance would include around 6,000 tickets sold by his team. Dolgon said he’s hoping students who are from Syracuse but attend colleges in other cities will help fill the void left by SU students heading out of town.

“Unfortunately we’re not going to get the SU students, who come from hockey markets — Boston, New York,” Dolgon said. “But we will get the Syracuse students who are away at different colleges.”

“ … You would never go to an event like this again potentially … If you’re one of 29-30,000 people, you can say ‘I was there when the indoor record was set.’ I think that’s pretty substantial.”

Published on November 13, 2014 at 12:57 am