Game 19: UMD vs Maine (Florida College Classic)

ESTERO, Fla. -- Greetings from Germain Arena, which sits 10 miles or so south of Fort Myers, where the UMD hotel is located.

This is the home of the ECHL's Florida Everblades, and also the 12-year home of a college hockey tournament.

People wonder how the hell this works. I'll confess I'm also curious to an extent, but the Everblades have run this thing long enough for me to realize that it's working in at least some ways. Last year's tournament drew an announced 9,644 for the two sessions (average of 4,822 in a 7,000-seat building). That isn't bad.

When UMD was here in 2005, attendance was announced at 11,922 for the two days, an average of 5,961. I was in my first season calling games, and had almost literally no idea what I was doing, so I can't corroborate this with any memory of what it looked like in the arena.

(To put that in a bit of perspective, the Everblades are drawing 4,800 per game or so through 14 home games this season.)

We'll see what this weekend brings. Hopefully it ends up with two UMD wins.

Lines?

Lines.

UMD
Seidel - Cameranesi - Basaraba
Farley - Herbert - Crandall (Justin)
Danberg - Hendrickson - Flaherty
Sampair - Young - Krause

Olson - Welinski
Bergman - Corrin
Smith - Casto

McNeely - Crandall (Aaron)

Maine
Shore - Beattie - Norman
Leen - Swavely (Steven) - Lomberg
Anthoine - Higgins - Swavely (Jon)
Riley - Leidermark - Merchant

Rutt - Nemec
Williams - O'Connor
Hutton - Cornell

Sullivan - Ouellette - Morris

(I talked to Maine's radio guy, and it appears this is how the goalies are always listed on Maine's line chart. He said he'd "eat his shoe" if Ouellette wasn't the starting goalie, and it appears he's wearing a real shoe.)