State basketball championships returning to Hershey

The PIAA voted this morning to move the state basketball championships back to Hershey.

Starting in 2013, the title games will be played at the Giant Center in Hershey. From 2007 through this past season, the state finals were played at Penn State's Bryce Jordan Center, but the PIAA contract with Penn State had expired.

It will be interesting to see if a return to Hershey helps attendance, which had dropped drastically in recent years at Penn State. However, the teams that made it to Penn State had a huge effect on attendance. Many of them were schools from the Philadelphia Public League or Catholic League and those schools don't bring many fans, sometimes fewere than 100.

The state championships were played in Hershey (either at the Giant Center or Hersheypark Arena) for 27 consecutive seasons before they moved to Penn State in 2007.

I'll have more on this story later and in tomorrow's Post-Gazette.