The Syracuse Crunch minor-league hockey team is working on a plan for Alliance Bank Stadium, home of the Syracuse Chiefs, to host the first-ever outdoor AHL game.
The Syracuse Crunch minor-league hockey team is working on a plan for Alliance Bank Stadium, home of the Syracuse Chiefs, to host the first-ever outdoor AHL game.
The Crunch is working on the proposed game with Onondaga County on the logistics of a game. Outdoor hockey is becoming a fad: the NHL has seen impressive returns on its annual New Year’s Day game, college football is jumping on the bandwagon, and it’s only a matter of time before baseball operators do the same. We’re actually a little surprised ballpark operators in northern climes don’t do more to promote ice-skating in winter months: Peter Kirk and crew have done a great (and profitable) job doing this in their Atlantic League digs.
The plan in Syracuse is to install a full rink at Alliance Bank Stadium so the Crunch can host the first AHL outdoor game. It’s an ambitious plan: the Crunch owners want to see more than 25,000 crammed into the ballpark, which may be a stretch: we’re not quite sure where all the fans would go, and we’re not so sure the facilities issue would be addressed with the installation of Porta-Potties. And we know there are more cost-effective solutions out there than the $300,000 pitched by a local rink vendor. Still, if it works, the game could be a game plan for other teams wanting to monetize their facilities in the offseason.
Subscribers to the weekly Ballpark Digest newsletter see articles before they’re posted to the site. You can sign up for a free subscription at the Newsletter Signup Page.
Join Ballpark Digest on Facebookand on Twitter!