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