Even free sherpa hats couldn’t save this event.

“Midnight Madness,” a terrible moniker for an event that ends at 8:30 p.m., fell flat on Friday. From the lack of students in the stands to the mishmash of events, the event neither inspired nor rallied any of the few in attendance.

Yes, the sherpa hats are awesome. Yes, the main reason I went to the event was to get the hat. Yes, I’m a sucker for free things. But this is coming from a guy who only missed a handful of games held at the TD Bank Sports Center last year.

Listening to the “Bobtunes” countdown that no one could hear (or even understand what we were counting down, if you hadn’t been paying attention to the athletics e-mails) was one of the more boring events of the night.

The volume on the Bobtunes and the microphones was just terrible. I could barely understand or hear anything that was being said by Master of Ceremonies Nick Bartlett. I wish the announcements were being drowned out due to raucous cheering from the fans in attendance, but that was not the case.

The whole event came off as amateurish and poorly run. For a school that wants to vault its athletics program into the national spotlight, those 90 minutes of “madness” were something off of a blooper reel.

Mostly at fault here are the students who attend this university. For those reading that did not attend, I do hope you realize that our school has dished out a mountain of money to build a beautiful facility for the ice hockey and basketball venues. We are unbelievably lucky that we no longer have to experience hockey at the Northford Ice Pavilion (where QU played from 1999 to 2007).

We have one of the nicest arenas to take in a basketball or hockey game, but when it comes time to fill the stands for any event, instead of a sea of yellow shirts, all I can see are the empty blue seats.

Obviously, if you don’t like sports, you won’t enjoy the games. Don’t bother going if this is you.

But for those of us that live for the thrill of athletics, we’ve been underwhelming at the games.

“Midnight Madness” could have been an awesome event for the school, the students and for the athletic program. Due to a perfect storm of student apathy and messy planning, the event was an absolute air ball. As a senior, I hope that these improve in the future, even if I’m not around to see them.