Speculation: Xcel Energy Center - Upgrades/Updates + Arena Experience

[Jarick]

Wonder if they will replace the terrible LCD screens outside the X? They look atrocious.

 

[BigT2002]

Wonder if they will replace the terrible LCD screens outside the X? They look atrocious.

They should but they probably won't do that because of how much it'll cost. In all honesty though, they should do everything related to visual appearance in one shot. Update it all.

 

[Jarick]

It looks awful. I should take a picture for those who haven't seen it.

The old LCD screen was about 30-40 different small screens side by side. Now they are all slightly different colors, have flickering bulbs, and lines and streaks and crap.

 

[tyratoku]

It looks awful. I should take a picture for those who haven't seen it.

The old LCD screen was about 30-40 different small screens side by side. Now they are all slightly different colors, have flickering bulbs, and lines and streaks and crap.

Outside the X? Which side is this on?

I almost always come in from the Hockey Lodge doors or the ones just to the south of them. I can't recall seeing that but it sounds atrocious.

 

[tomgilbertfan]

I think he's talking about the sign on 7th and Kellogg.

 

[Jarick]

Yeah, like I said I'll try and snap a picture next time I'm there.

$200 million arena and it looks like they hoisted an old projection TV off Craigslist for the front

 

[mezcal]

I think I have a picture, I visited the Twin Cities in June. I'll post it here soon if I can find it.

 

[tomgilbertfan]

Is it this one?

 

[llamapalooza]

Yeah that's the one. It looks pretty bad in that pic but it's somehow much jankier in real life.

 

[Jarick]

That's the one. WAY worse IRL The background red isn't a solid color but is blotches and bunches of bulbs flicker and are stuck.

Yeah, it's a small thing...but what's $5-10k in the grand scheme of a facelift?

 

[faribogopherguy]

Going by Russo's notebook in today's Strib, the new scoreboard is going to finally happen. In lieu of a link, here's the excerpt, "With the Wild planning to replace its center-ice scoreboard at Xcel Energy Center, Matt Majka, the Wild’s chief operating officer, attended Saturday’s game in Denver to see the Pepsi Center’s new state-of-the-art giant scoreboard and observe the game operations.

Owner Craig Leipold attended October’s game at Tampa Bay to see the Lightning’s new scoreboard and the Wild plans to send a representative to Madison Square Garden to see the Rangers’ new scoreboard and games ops when the Wild plays there next Sunday."

 

[mezcal]

Just watched the flag bearer video for today, was bored.

Noticed that they echo the announcers voice on the last word of every big announcement at Wild games now. It's atrocious. Seriously. Just stop right there.

 

[HobeyBroten]

Any chance we could get this to happen at the 'X' next year with some of the upgrades?

 

[BigT2002]

Just watched the flag bearer video for today, was bored.

Noticed that they echo the announcers voice on the last word of every big announcement at Wild games now. It's atrocious. Seriously. Just stop right there.

They stopped doing it with the Power Play finally. Hopefully this stops as well.

 

[mezcal]

They stopped doing it with the Power Play finally. Hopefully this stops as well.

Kill it with fire. They need to keep it simple.

 

[Avder]

Any chance we could get this to happen at the 'X' next year with some of the upgrades?

Jumpin jehosephat!

 

[Billy Mays Here*]

Any chance we could get this to happen at the 'X' next year with some of the upgrades?

Cool idea but a bit too much in my opinion.

Just an upgraded scoreboard is more than enough for me.

 

[Paul Bunyan]

They stopped doing it with the Power Play finally. Hopefully this stops as well.

I was going to say, the first period or so they were doing the echo power play bit, but then it simmered down.

They also almost let the lighthouse off early, had it as Pens vs. Wild on the boards until after the teams finished warm up and a bunch of other things.

Not sure if it's a new crew or what, but since the beginning of this year you just notice more things that are off.

 

[BigT2002]

I was going to say, the first period or so they were doing the echo power play bit, but then it simmered down.

They also almost let the lighthouse off early, had it as Pens vs. Wild on the boards until after the teams finished warm up and a bunch of other things.

Not sure if it's a new crew or what, but since the beginning of this year you just notice more things that are off.

Yep. I think they are trying different things to try and get the crowd into it more. The game against Pitt they were all over the damn map with the music. SO much kesha too....ugh...

 

[Minnesota]

Any chance we could get this to happen at the 'X' next year with some of the upgrades?

Want.

 

[Paul Bunyan]

Yep. I think they are trying different things to try and get the crowd into it more. The game against Pitt they were all over the damn map with the music. SO much kesha too....ugh...

Oh god really? The music is the one thing they usually have on point there....

Maybe I'm glad I didn't get that in my season ticket draft!

The drum has been out really early all year (this seems to be a league wide thing), they've brought in the "rent-a-fan" guy twice at games I've been at, and it seems to be a theme around the league a bit more as those that sit on their hands and the "no swearing or yelling brigade" fill up more and more of the seats.

So, they use event sports stuff to create atmosphere. The reason the Bruins game was great this year was that the game created it, and the fans here rose and made it arguably the best atmosphere I've seen at the X in the last two seasons (and two games I went to the season before I moved back here).

After having season tickets to hockey in the E, I really hope it doesn't turn into that. It's nice going to a rink and hearing Volbeat, Metallica, etc as opposed to Katy Perry and Ke$ha like 50 times. It's bad enough I've seen them use the hockey organ ONCE and that was in a 5-2 drubbing from the Canucks.

 

[BigT2002]

Want.

They've done it before. Playoffs they usually "up the ante" with pregame presentation.

Oh god really? The music is the one thing they usually have on point there....

Maybe I'm glad I didn't get that in my season ticket draft!

You can always tell what "night" it is. College ID night and stuff they always play more Top 40. When they did the Couples tickets thing they played more older rock music. Guys-night-out they played more rock. That game was waaaaay more teenagers (typical Pitt game), so more Top 40.

The drum has been out really early all year (this seems to be a league wide thing), they've brought in the "rent-a-fan" guy twice at games I've been at, and it seems to be a theme around the league a bit more as those that sit on their hands and the "no swearing or yelling brigade" fill up more and more of the seats.

Oh man, that guy was annoying as hell.

So, they use event sports stuff to create atmosphere. The reason the Bruins game was great this year was that the game created it, and the fans here rose and made it arguably the best atmosphere I've seen at the X in the last two seasons (and two games I went to the season before I moved back here).

Crowd in Pitt was incredible. Granted they had the game in hand early...but there were chants and people were standing up and having a good time.

After having season tickets to hockey in the E, I really hope it doesn't turn into that. It's nice going to a rink and hearing Volbeat, Metallica, etc as opposed to Katy Perry and Ke$ha like 50 times. It's bad enough I've seen them use the hockey organ ONCE and that was in a 5-2 drubbing from the Canucks.

I keep in touch with my rep a lot during the season because I go to a lot of away games with friends that are STH's to their respective teams. I'm always giving her feedback on what they can do better for the game experience and what they could do for STH's as well. Why they send those surveys out every couple months to see what people like and what they don't like. Music is always on those damn things for this reason. I lit it up last year because they played the SAME damn songs every time while pre game warmups started. I can't imagine being the players and hearing in the exact order the same songs for close to 30 games.

 

[llamapalooza]

I keep in touch with my rep a lot during the season because I go to a lot of away games with friends that are STH's to their respective teams. I'm always giving her feedback on what they can do better for the game experience and what they could do for STH's as well. Why they send those surveys out every couple months to see what people like and what they don't like. Music is always on those damn things for this reason. I lit it up last year because they played the SAME damn songs every time while pre game warmups started. I can't imagine being the players and hearing in the exact order the same songs for close to 30 games.

I feel like the music part of the survey was kind of useless...the genres were baffling. Like, if you wanted to suggest more rock (as opposed to top-40, country, electronic, or hip-hop), your choices were classic rock, hard rock, and ****ing light rock. Can we at least get some choices like alt-rock or punk? And maybe let us rank the genres instead of just picking one genre?

Frankly I think the best option would be to just give people a box to enter their top 5 artists they'd like to hear at Wild games, then use a simple script to cross-reference that with Wiki to determine the subgenres and...OK maybe I'm taking the music survey a little too seriously. But if they can do a list of like fifty companies for "which of these companies are sponsors?" you'd think they could do a list of fifty artists across a bunch of different genres and have people check the ones they'd like to hear.

 

[BigT2002]

I feel like the music part of the survey was kind of useless...the genres were baffling. Like, if you wanted to suggest more rock (as opposed to top-40, country, electronic, or hip-hop), your choices were classic rock, hard rock, and ****ing light rock. Can we at least get some choices like alt-rock or punk? And maybe let us rank the genres instead of just picking one genre?

Frankly I think the best option would be to just give people a box to enter their top 5 artists they'd like to hear at Wild games, then use a simple script to cross-reference that with Wiki to determine the subgenres and...OK maybe I'm taking the music survey a little too seriously. But if they can do a list of like fifty companies for "which of these companies are sponsors?" you'd think they could do a list of fifty artists across a bunch of different genres and have people check the ones they'd like to hear.

Totally agree with you there dude. Would make it a lot easier for those who actually like more than one genre too.

And yes, that was so stupid when they did that "sponsor" thing I about lost my ****. Ripped that up at the end when you can leave comments or something. Couldn't believe that was even considered something that I would GAF about.

 

[llamapalooza]

Totally agree with you there dude. Would make it a lot easier for those who actually like more than one genre too.

And yes, that was so stupid when they did that "sponsor" thing I about lost my ****. Ripped that up at the end when you can leave comments or something. Couldn't believe that was even considered something that I would GAF about.

It's a more accurate way of measuring which of their sponsorships/promotions are most effective than directly asking you would be. They don't care about your opinion on that one; they just need to be able to back to Bud Light or whoever at the end of the year and say "see, 78% of Wild fans remembered your ad."