With the Brewers struggling to find arms capable of throwing strikes, the Bucks eliminated from the never-ending saga that is the NBA playoffs and the Packers weeks away from doing anything meaningful, one local team is actually doing something almost unheard of in these parts.
The Milwaukee Admirals are playing for a championship.
Regular readers of OnMilwaukee.com have probably been following the playoff diaries being submitted by players, coaches, and staff during the team’s run to the Calder Cup, but still, too many hockey fans are coming to the Bradley Center dressed as empty blue seats.
Scheduled against two Brewers’ games -- including Damian Miller bobble head night -- and the annual RiverSplash! Celebration on Old World Third Street, the team averaged more than 5,000 fans for Games 1 and 2 this weekend.
Naturally, the casual fan will respond to that by saying that the Admirals are merely a minor-league team, or that Milwaukee isn’t a hockey town.
To be blunt, both are ridiculous and ignorant suggestions.
Back in the mid-1990s, the Admirals were one of the top draws in the now-defunct International Hockey League. Crowds of 10,000 or more were common. The franchise was a minor-league entry then, too. Granted, the Bob Uecker commercials had something to do with attendance, but the game still has to be exciting.
Milwaukee was such a good hockey town in those days that the University of Wisconsin gladly gave up two home games a year to play the Badger Hockey Showdown here for a number of years. Sellout crowds turned the Bradley Center into a sea of red every December.
Milwaukee isn’t ever going to be confused with Detroit and its longtime Stanley Cup tradition. People say that Milwaukee isn’t a baseball town, either, but over four million fans have turned out in the last two seasons to watch some baseball that often bordered on gruesome.
Yet, as the Admirals try to win their second championship in the last three seasons (honestly, how many people knew that the Admirals won the Calder Cup in 2004? Better yet, how many Milwaukeeans actually know what the Calder Cup is?), the Bradley Center sits more than half empty for the first two games of the Finals.
It’s pretty pathetic that in a community which so blindly supports a franchise that won just 25 percent of its games last season, only 5,000 people can come out and see a team that actually has a chance of accomplishing something.
Give credit to the new ownership group. For a franchise that has done little in terms of marketing since Jane Bradley-Pettit died in 2001, Harris Turer and Jon Greenberg have made great strides in returning the Admirals to household name status.
Attendance was up 12 percent from a year ago, and the sellout crowd of 17,653 on hand for the April 14 home finale was the largest American Hockey League crowd in six seasons, and the biggest Bradley Center turnout in a decade.
All of that is fine and dandy, but this is the playoffs. Minor league or not, the Admirals are playing for a championship. And while that word may be an unfamiliar one for fans of the local teams, here’s to hoping that should this series return to Milwaukee after games three through five next weekend, more than just a small and boisterous gathering will be on hand to see the Cup carried around the ice.
