Do fans travel in great numbers for anything in Canada, though? The distances are so vast that not all that many people are going to go from, say, Edmonton to Vancouver or whatever to watch their home team play on the road. It's not like going from Chicago to Milwaukee or what have you.

Any well supported local sports team is generally supported by locals, not by away fans in any significant numbers. So in that sense U Sports teams have large population bases to potentially draw from... they don't necessarily need visitors.

Tiger-Cats fans in Toronto would be one example. Argos fans used to travel to Hamilton too, back in the day at least.

Places like Queen's and Western probably have way more alumni at their games than the two Ottawa universities do.

This is also true of some of the small town universities in the Maritimes.

Laval too, probably.

Yeah, good point. That might be one of the best such examples, and possibly the biggest in terms of sheer numbers (I'm sure there are some smaller junior hockey type examples, eg. Moose Jaw to Regina where the numbers would pale in comparison). Maybe Leafs fans to Ottawa. The list would be pretty short. Generally small potatoes and a far cry from the scene in the US where you might see busloads of people going to the next state over.

It's an urban legend among Ottawa Senators fans that people from Montreal and Toronto travel to Kanata for cheaper, available tickets to see their team play.

I am sure there are some who do just that, but most Leafs and Habs fans in Kanata are from up the Valley (Leafs) or Gatineau (Habs).

There is an aspect of that when I was going to university. "This is a special place full of special people" was the feeling I got at time.

I think the Seattle Mariners try to schedule their home series against the Blue Jays on weekends as often as possible to capture that large attendance boost when thousands of Canadians make the few hour drive. Although as said with the Leafs in Ottawa example, these aren't Toronto based fans travelling, they are western Canadian Jays fans. If home city based fans is the criteria, then probably the Tiger Cats in Toronto example is probably one of the best. Given the proximity though, I'm not sure that really says much.

No, I think you're right. However, I wasn't saying USports needs visitors to support local teams. USports could use visitors to add more excitement to gamedays.

With major league teams, you'll always have at some visiting fans, especially for the Canadian teams. The fanbases are just large and affluent enough that it happens. Further, even if they don't have that, there's usually some other sort of element present that makes the game day experience worth it.

The same cannot be said by basically any USports team. Realistically, there is very little to attract people to games. Sports? No, I can pay a little more and go watch a pro team. Drinking? No, I can do that at home. If there were some more interaction between different student bodies, it'd help add some excitement to the games - after all, how many teams use some spin of "Defend This House" as a rallying cry for their fans - and might get more students. But for reasons you mentioned, it's not really a solvable problem outside of specific rivalries with close proximity (Calgary/Alberta, Sask/Regina, etc).

Toronto head office adding a 1 hour Raptors show to Vancouver sports radio! :yuck:
We cheered against them the whole time we had the Grizzlies and now we gotta cheer for them haha!? Toronto is totally clueless and tone deaf as to what we want.
1 hour NBA show makes sense but being force-fed a 3rd Toronto team is sickening.

How dare you complain about a decision made in the centre of the world?!?!

:D

That’s why I refuse to support the Jays, Raps, and Leafs. Just because they are the home team of the city that the media headquarters is located doesn’t mean that as a citizen of Canada that I HAVE to cheer for them.

Tim hortons boycotting next world juniors due to hockey canada scandal wish tsn would grow some balls and boycott too.

Considering the sports media outlet is owned by the same company that owns a chunk of the Raptors, it makes sense they play content for their team on their outlets.

It's just a matter of time before heads start rolling at Hockey Canada no matter how hard they attempt to project this image of concern and public penance regarding what has happened.

I don't think many people cheered for or against the Raptors or Grizzlies when Vancouver had the Grizzlies...

Yes, the Jays tend to play against Seattle on weekends for that reason. The ballpark normally will have more Jays fans than Mariner ones. Even the vendors at the stadium will stock up with lots of Blue Jays merchandise.

:haha:

Definitely an organization on its way out.

But it will be replaced of course.

Politicians of all federal political parties are really going after Hockey Canada.

How does that help? So they can buy US college hockey cheaply and build a market for it among the American wannabees?

I’ve gone to a leafs game in Buffalo before - it was like 80% leafs fans and the peace bridge border line afterwards was hilariously terrible, backing out onto I190.

Canadians make up 10-20% of Buffalo's season ticket holders.

I think an over-arching Canadian governing body for hockey is essential, but I have a hard time imagining the current Hockey Canada organization surviving this.

I suspect they will soon be disbanded and then something else will be started up under a new name.

Not exactly the same thing as the Red Cross survived as an emergency assistance provider, but their mismanagement of the blood supply system, which was as a result taken away from them, comes to mind.

It's actually kind of surprising that this hasn't been done. There is very little NCAA hockey coverage in Canada and it's the sort of thing I'd imagine Canadian networks could buy pretty cheaply as filler content. Speaking for myself, I'd sooner watch NCAA hockey than all the other NCAA sports on TV.

I think the only NCAA hockey currently on my cable package apart from the Frozen Four (NCAA finals) are the occasional local broadcasts on channels from North Dakota and Minnesota, but it's pretty rare.

Incidentally, one of my neighbours has a brother that is a former pro player who now coaches a NCAA team... he graciously gave my kids a bunch of team swag back in the summer so I guess now we're big fans :haha:

TSN typically shows a few weekly NCAA hockey games in the leadup to the Frozen Four. It's really entertaining hockey and pretty good viewing - definitely better than CHL depending on the matchup.

I should add that NCAA hockey continues to expand, adding more and more programs each year. There are new D1 programs this season at Lindenwood (St. Louis) and Stonehill (Massachusetts) as well as Alaska-Anchorage returning from hiatus. I think there's now more NCAA programs than CHL teams, and if not then it's equivalent. One is growing and the other is not... :cowboy:

Does WDAZ in grand forks still air UND games? I get the weekend NDSU football games from them in fargo.

The organization as it stands may not survive at least in the current configuration, and I suspect there will be wholesale house cleaning in the next few weeks.

Quite a number of other sports have had major changes to their governance after some serious reviews. Hockey Canada was just too big and too powerful financially. It will be interesting to see what the new governing body will be after this. There will definitely be more outside monitoring and auditing.

I have been reading a scathing review from another sport after athlete complaints. It will be interesting to see how that plays out for a staff driven organization.

Huzzah for "BRANCH PLANT CANADA" :slob:

Or one could say that the CHL grew to fill viable markets decades ago and the NCAA is just getting around to that now.

I vaguely recall seeing ND hockey in the channel guide but I can't remember exactly when. Their games are normally on some US cable channel.

I think a lot of it ties in to the current issues revolving around HC. Not only have they been negligent on items such as SA and other internal matters but they've also been stagnant in attempting to grow the game or build the game in any meaningful fashion, or even attempting to maintain the game in a way to ensure its future. When was the last time the CHL net-added a new team that wasn't a relocation? 15 years ago? They have nearly no presence in some of this country's largest cities and show no signs of returning there. A lack of proper leadership at HC is one root cause of this. At this point there's no reason to believe that hockey isn't moving in the same direction as other sports in this country - university in the US proving a more viable option than that of junior in Canada. The more schools the US adds the more spots there'll be, whether they're in Minnesota, Missouri, or Arizona.

At this point I think it's safe to say that the CHL could probably cut a few teams and not really see any immediate downside, but that's another discussion.

In some respects, NCAA hockey is not that different from the CHL in terms of where it does best. It tends to thrive in places without NHL teams. There are certain exceptions in both cases, but by and large this is true. The big advantage that the NCAA has is that there are way more population centres in the US without NHL teams.

The CHL is already in all the large Canadian markets, St. John's is the only top-20 metro without a team and that's just because of the travel costs associated with their isolation. On the whole, the large market western teams (including Vancouver) do reasonably well in terms of attendance, team profile, etc., especially considering the pros have centre stage. Ottawa-Gatineau is similar. It's really just Toronto and Montreal where you have CHL teams being afterthoughts in the market, and I don't know how you can really pin that on the CHL.

Ultimately I think junior hockey is about places like Sherbrooke and Lethbridge. That's their bread and butter, much like how the NCAA's hockey strongholds are places like Grand Forks and Madison.

Because the Jays fan base is all across Canada, and some MLB cities in the US are within driving distance of the border, a number of US cities get decent attendance from Jays fans.

Several mentioned Seattle already; I made the trip in early July, and actually made a one-week vacation out of it. I went to two of the Jays games at T-Mobile Park, and easily over half of the fans in attendance were Canadian. I was on the Link train on the way to one of the games, I spoke with people visiting from Maple Ridge, Langley, and even one guy who came all the way from Lethbridge. In the stands I was sitting next to some people visiting from Abbotsford.

I recall earlier in the season when the Jays played a rare interleague series in Pittsburgh; there were a sizable number of Jays fans in the stands. This also happened when the Jays played a series against Minnesota (though they're in the AL). Detroit is an obvious location for Jays fans crossing the border, and I would imagine Cleveland gets a decent number of Jays fans.

Myself, I have plans for next year to take a vacation in April doing a two-week tour of the Southwest, see the Jays in Anaheim, and then in Houston. I have my doubts there will be many Jays fans at those games, but I'm sure I won't be the only one. Especially if the Jays go far in the upcoming playoffs.

On the hockey side, with border restrictions now gone, I would expect that some Vancouver Canucks fans will travel to Seattle for Kraken games this season. It likely won't be like Jays fans going to Seattle as Canucks fans can just see home games in Vancouver, but I'd expect there would be some.

What was most shocking to me was interim Hockey Canada board chair Andrea Skinner's attitude in this week's hearings. It is disappointing enough to see an old boys' club defending their organization's deficiencies, but to see a woman defending the organization against allegations of gang rape by male hockey players against women is especially disappointing. It's a huge disservice to all women, especially those who have been victimized by rape.

What little respect I'd had for Hockey Canada before this week was wiped out by Skinner. Fortunately, Telus, Tim Hortons and Canadian Tire are making moves that should hopefully financially cripple Hockey Canada and leave them with no choice but to either shut down or completely change for the better.

I want to commend my MP, Peter Julien who has been a big part of these hearings grilling them.

These are all fair points. I think it's worth mentioning that places like Boston have a number of successful NCAA programs whilst simultaneously being in an NHL market. Obviously there's a different culture surrounding NCAA programs and CHL teams, and different revenue levers, but it's worth mentioning that the NCAA can exist in this shared-NHL environment more than the CHL, at least in terms of this one specific example. I guess Minnesota and Michigan might be the only other two reasonable examples given the sheer number of NCAA programs in those states. Maybe Buffalo.

The CHL is definitely more about these mid-sized markets. I'm actually curious to see how a market like Halifax reacts, mostly regarding the CHL, as more professional teams move into the market and soak up potential sales. The CHL has been struggling more these days in smaller markets (at least in Eastern Canada) so presumably that same sort of struggle may reach upwards given enough time.

I guess i'm splitting hairs a bit but the Giants left Vancouver for Langley a few years ago. I guess we can argue about whether or not we consider that the city - i'm not really considering Mississauga, Oshawa, or Blainville within Toronto or Montreal, so Langley would fall into that category as well. I don't know. It makes me wonder if the Hitmen or Oil Kings would survive in those cities if they're weren't owned by NHL groups - the 67s will be downgrading their arena scope in the coming years.

It's not difficult to find Jays fans at games in New York or Boston, either, but those are less surprising.

How do the Vancouver Giants do for attendance? I've never been to one of their games, which are played out in Langley.

It's like calling the baseball Angels team the LA Angels. They don't play in LA, or even in LA County; they moved to Anaheim in 1966 and have been there ever since. But it's still in the Los Angeles metro area.

Pacific Coliseum (16,281)
2008-2009: 8,470
2009-2010: 7,117
2010-2011: 7,450
2011-2012: 6,944
2012-2013: 7,205
2013-2014: 6,266
2014-2015: 5,815
2015-2016: 5,169

Langley Events Centre (5,276)
2016-2017: 3,848
2017-2018: 3,383
2018-2019: 3,826
2019-2020: 3,920
2021-2022: 2,843
2022-2023: 3,166

Worth pointing out that the Canucks purchased the NLL Vancouver Warriors in 2018, moving them from Langley to Rogers Arena shortly after the Giants moved in the opposite direction. The CPL will be starting up in Langley in the spring.

Yes, Boston is the most obvious exception to that rule. New England is kind of the heartland of NCAA hockey, so it makes sense. Minnesota, Michigan and Colorado would be the other places where both are doing well. But that is not that dissimilar from how the Oil Kings, Hitmen, 67s, Olympiques and Giants do reasonably well for themselves in NHL markets.

The Giants play in Langley but they are the Vancouver team and the local media covers them as such. I mean, would you say the Sens aren't Ottawa's team because they're in Kanata? The Steelheads, Giants and Armada may not be downtown, but they are still located in those markets even if it is the suburbs.

Anyway, this is to say that the CHL of today looks pretty much like the CHL of 10, 20, 30 years ago... it occupies more or less the same place in the Canadian hockey firmament that it did back then so I can't accept the narrative that it is declining or dying just because it isn't adding two teams every season.

Of course. My point was more that half of your examples of CHL teams in those NHL markets are directly owned by the NHL teams themselves. One of the two that aren't are in the process of moving to a smaller arena (67s) and the other (Olympiques) moved further away from the NHL team to get into a better market for their own team. I don't think a CHL team can exist in the same space as an NHL team and expect to continue on as usual unless they're owned and operated by the NHL teams they're competing against for eyeballs.

If the CHL does well in its 'traditional' markets is it because it's a compelling product or because there's no competition? Halifax will lead us to some sort of answer in the coming years.

I mean, being located outside of Ottawa is one reason as to why the Senators at times struggle. :haha:

An NHL team being located out in the suburbs is a different kettle of fish than a local junior team in the same area given the scope and relevance of those teams and leagues. How'd the 67s do in Kanata when Lansdowne was being renovated? Not very well. And they've struggled to recover since.

I guess we'll agree to disagree. I don't see those teams as having any impact on the urban centres in terms of being in the market and having any sort of impact, and many of these suburbs take on different characters than the urban centres at times. The Steelheads have always been one of the weakest OHL markets and Blainville are usually pretty middling. I suppose that's a better fate than the Rocket, Montreal Junior, or St. Mike's.

I think it's moreso that it's not moving into new markets or doing anything new whilst struggling to gain traction to do anything different than what they've been doing over the past 30 years. The Q successfully branched in the Maritimes in the 90s but since then have mostly been static - AFAIK both Baie-Comeau and Acadie-Bathurst are directly supported by their local municipalities in order to remain in those (declining) markets. I don't think it would hurt the league to cut four teams, honestly, given the level of play, but that's more of a discussion of quality and number of players available than business case. The OHL could probably lose two teams and not really bat an eye quality-of-play wise.

Americans are a lot better than Canadians are when it comes to appreciating different levels of spectator sports. It applies to hockey but also obviously football, basketball, etc.

It's not just NCAA vs. top-level pro BTW.

The "minor" pro leagues typically draw better in the US than in Canada as well.

They just have a better-developed spectator sports culture.

Is it really definitively better hockey?

One thing is that Americans are good at is hype. And believe me, I love the hype in sports too.

But typically NCAA hockey games have 2500-5000 people packed into a small arena, with many fans being young students as opposed to Vern who drove into town from the farm in his Dodge Ram. So the atmosphere is usually a lot better. That comes through even on TV.

How is this any different than the NCAA, though? The strongest college sports hotbeds are places that didn't have major league pro sports until relatively recently, if at all. Think of North Carolina for basketball, Alabama for football or North Dakota/Wisconsin for hockey.

Quality of play should theoretically go up with fewer teams. I've heard it said that the WHL needs to yank a team or two to even things up with the OHL and QMJHL given that it has the most teams but doesn't typically perform well at the Memorial Cup. But none of the WHL teams are really suffering badly even in very small markets like Swift Current.

I don't think there are all that many new markets to move into in Canada... there are maybe a few cities in each of the three leagues that could potentially step up, but it would require new buildings and a lot of money. In the WHL, Lloydminster, Fort McMurray and maybe somewhere in the BC Interior (back to Cranbrook?) might be able to handle a team, but none of those are really slam dunks.

On a related note, I took a peek at college hockey attendance stats and they are not that dissimilar from CHL numbers. There are two teams that seem to draw around the 10,000 mark or over: North Dakota and Wisconsin, although the latter took a bit of a covid dip:

https://www.collegehockeynews.com/al...php?s=20212022

Sub in London and Quebec for those two and the rest of the numbers look pretty standard CHL-like. The top drawing New England team gets around 4,500 a game. Those are respectable, but not "taking the world by storm" numbers.

A lot of the players are older and end up going on to the NHL as well so...yes? It depends on the programs playing. Michigan/Wisconsin is going to easily be better hockey whereas St. Lawrence/Brown...probably not.

I don't think it's all that different, is it? The difference is that the NCAA is still expanding in a variety of different areas whereas the CHL has been stagnant for at least a decade. My argument has mostly been that the CHL has steadily been pushed out of major markets in Canada. Part of this is simply natural and part of this is down to HC neglecting the future of the sport by failing to make it relevant in our urban centres, preferring to sit on their hands and funnel money into secret slush funds and whatever else they've been up to.

I mentioned this earlier in regards to revenue levers but NCAA schools are not at all similar to CHL teams when it comes to revenue sources, at least for the most part. Many of these schools have vasts amounts of money to pour into their programs. I'm assuming that NCAA programs don't need to focus on physical attendance at games as much as CHL teams need to. Princeton might only get 500 people out to a game but...well, it's Princeton. They don't need an additional however many people paying $20 for entry, at least not as much as Rouyn-Noranda might.

I haven't eyed many NCAA rinks in the US but my gut is telling me that not many play in NHL-size arenas like Quebec does. I think only Ohio State has a big arena and it's also in a shared-NHL market. :hmmm: :P

North Dakota consistently beats U Manitoba in their annual exhibition game at Ralph Engelstad Arena. But UND is one of the top US programs while the Bisons are pretty mediocre. It would probably be a different outcome if USask or UAlberta played UND each year.

No question that NCAA crushes it in the hype game. The Bisons draw in the range of maybe one to two hundred fans a game. Maybe three hundred if it's big. I took my family to a couple of games last season and my son loves hockey so he doesn't care about the atmosphere, but my wife was wondering why I dragged her to a game that has smaller crowds than my daughter's ringette :haha:

Meanwhile down the road at UND in Grand Forks, it's sellout crowds of 11,500, jumbotrons and pyrotechnics every game.

That reminds me, I don't think I've seen any conversation about this. Apparently, southern Ontario makes up about 15% (or used to) of Bills attendance. The new Bills stadium, I think, will have 10k less seats. I wonder what will happen there?

It will be interesting to see how NCAA hockey fares with the declining enrollment of male students across the board in US colleges.

I don't think there is any comparison in the number of CHLers making it to the NHL every year, compared to the number of NCAAers.

If the number of NCAA programs is approaching the number of CHL clubs, if the calibre of play really is similar (or even better) then you'd expect they'd be producing a similar number of NHLers.

Considering that hockey is still the number one pro sport in every Canadian city with a NHL team, I'd say that hockey is still pretty relevant. Even in the old days junior hockey and minor pro was a fairly marginal enterprise in the largest cities, so it's not like things have changed dramatically. The CHL in places like Toronto is roughly where I would expect them to be. I guess at one point the junior team was "downtown" when the Marlboroughs were at MLG, but would it really make a difference if the Steelheads played at Coca-Cola Coliseum and drew the same few thousand people a game? I'd imagine that they would still be roughly of the same level of prominence.

Sure, but that's university sports. That's partly why U Sports teams are so lackadaisical with respect to marketing. The bills get paid and the paycheques cash no matter how many people are in the stands. But the reasons for why the numbers are the way they are, are not really what's relevant here.

Not many CHL teams do either. If you look at the NCAA attendance figures, you will notice that only a few teams are in the "sold out every night" category of, let's say, 95% capacity or more. So it's not like capacity is a major limiting factor.

The NCAA does seem to be an increasingly common developmental route for NHL players... not that the NCAA schools are pumping out tons of blue-chip prospects, but there are a good number of young players who are eschewing the CHL to take the NCAA scholarship route instead. They will typically play a year or two of junior A or high school, then move into the NCAA at 18 (the Cale Makar, Jonathan Toews, etc. route).

I'm not an expert on why players make certain decisions to go one way or the other, but the CHL does come with paid postsec education as well. Basically you get one year university paid for every year of CHL hockey you play. So a lot of U Sports players are former CHL players who continue to play competitive hockey into their 20s even though they are no longer on a path to the AHL/NHL. U Sports players who actually make it to the NHL are pretty exceptional to my knowledge.

What's the average age difference between the two leagues? An NCAA team with a bunch of more developed 22-year olds could stomp a bunch of 18-year olds in the CHL, doesn't mean they are better prospects for an NHL team to try and develop.