GOOD EVENING, HOCKEY FANS, AND WELCOME TO THE DANE COUNTY MEMORIAL COLISEUM. As I went through my archives pulling out some keepsakes from the Milwaukee Hamilton 1972 state basketball championship, I came across an article from Sports Illustrated, sometime in January or February of 1973, headlined Wisconsin on the ice: hullaballoo! Here's the way things used to be.

The house specialty is reserved for a Wisconsin goal. At 8:15 of the second period Dennis Olmstead, son of the NHL immortal Bert, scores. His is the first of 41 shots at the Michigan State goalie to get through. Still, to the gathered faithful the goalie is obviously full of holes, like a sieve, which explains what follows.

The noise begins low down near the ice, from a few voices, clipped and quick: "SIEVE, SIEVE, SIEVE," and then spreads quickly, the tempo slowing: "SIEVE . . . SIEVE . . . SIEVE," sonorous and heavy, continuing as play resumes, on and on, accompanied by a forest of raised forefingers, all shaking and pointing derisively at the visiting goalie in tempo with the chanting. The boos had been a blessing in comparison, and the din has hardly abated when Gary Winchester scores Wisconsin's second goal.

Wisconsin had the best sieve-chant anywhere in hockey, EVER, in those days. The seating capacity of the Dane County Coliseum, where smoking was not permitted in the seating section, was 8,431, and the fans would boo the announcer if the night's attendance was a number less than that.

In Madison, hockey fans may be excused if they ask, "What hockey strike?"

Maybe the best way for America's dwindling core of [NHL] hockey lovers to look at things is that the game isn't dying, it's just away getting an education.

While the pros were throwing themselves under a Zamboni last weekend, the Kohl Center was selling out twice as the University of Wisconsin split with first-place Colorado College. More than 30,000 people were content to let the conglomerates fuss while they watched the collegians check.

But Wisconsin's coach, Badger national championship veteran Mike Eaves, aspires to do better.

They've sold out their last five games in the Kohl Center, lead the nation in attendance, are a lock to make the NCAA tournament, still have an outside chance at winning the league title and will lose only two seniors after this season.

In other words, hockey is doing fine at Wisconsin. But it used to do better and should again, according to the coach. Eaves played on one of the Badgers' five national championship teams, and he thinks it has been too long since the last one came around in 1990.

"We should be in that mix every year," he said.

That certainly wouldn't hurt the gate, but then Wisconsin already is averaging just 2,000 a game short of a sellout, which is another area Eaves plans to improve.

"We'd like to get to the point where basketball has evolved, and that's a tremendous goal" he said.

Two thousand short of a sellout. Back to Sports Illustrated.

No boos were ever like the Coliseum's -- none so oppressive, so incessant, so nearly evil. They reverberate so thickly they seem to form clouds, to rain down millions of little b's and o's onto the bowed heads of visiting teams.

But presumably no longer, and no longer on the announcer who reports that 8,431 people are in attendance at the somewhat larger Kohl Center.

How things change. In the early 1970s, the basketball team floundered while the hockey team played the Soviets in Madison on New Year's Eve and made regular appearances in what was not yet called the Frozen Four. The basketball program has made great strides,

A reminder of how tremendous will come in a couple of weeks, when Wisconsin has home ice for the first round of the WCHA playoffs but will get bumped to the Dane County Coliseum while high school basketball takes over the Kohl Center.

Where, I hope, the reported attendance will be no less than 8,431. And I hope to hear of some good sieve-chanting.

The coach has a bit of a problem, however, as the Badgers are in the middle of a late-season swoon. They have to make up five points with three games to play, which means they'll need a little help from the other teams in the league.