Winnipeg | NHL Jets

[midnightrambler]

Originally Posted by feepa

41 games x 17500 = 717500. You'd would almost need the entire population of Saskatchewan to go to at least one game each to sell out general seating.
Don't forget that the money maker is luxury boxes. Usually 40-60 of those per arena in the NHL...

The NHL won't be coming to Saskatoon, or Regina, and even if it did, I would require a significant portion of the population to support it, much more then a CFL franchise (9 games x 30,000 = 270,000)). Don't forget that most CFL games happen on a weekend or Friday night, and you don't have multiple games in one week.

That math doesn't make any sense:

Say you have 41 games in Calgary and 41 Games in Edmonton which is 82 games a year x 17,500 people per game which = 1,435,000 which is nearly half the population on Alberta. There is no way there could be 2 teams in Alberta.... ptch

Plus Football is only played for 4 - 5 months of the year. As you said, 9 games. Hockey there is 41 so obviously there is going to be a greater demand for fans...

Plus if there were 41 football games in a year we would still probably average over 20,000 people a game. I would likely make it to more games if there were more of them. In the summer it is tough to get to a rider game if you live in Saskatoon. First of all I think they have 22,000 season tickets sold, and second of all there is a lot of things that compete with my time in the summer, like golf, boating, the lake etc... Just like it would had I live in Pheonix. BUT

It snowed today, it's May 8th for F@ck sakes. And there is nothing to do here in the winter, so that will obviously have an impact on ticket sales as well.

+ There is plenty of corporate wealth in Saskatchewan. PCS, Cameco, All our glorious government run corporations which will gladly blow money on advertising (AKA Tickets) . Federated Co-op, Areva, Credit Unions, and a slew of Jr. Companies siting on a tonne of valuable resources that the world needs.

If anything it could impact Edmonton season ticket sales. But probably not.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by feepa

even a team coming back to Winnipeg is laughable. You'll need a whole new arena!!!!

Just keep supporting the Moose. You'll be alright.

Perhaps we are simply living in the past and wallowing in nostalgia - something that would never, ever happen in the "City of Champions"

(a-heh-heh-heh)

[SHOFEAR]

Originally Posted by midnightrambler

That math doesn't make any sense:

Say you have 41 games in Calgary and 41 Games in Edmonton which is 82 games a year x 17,500 people per game which = 1,435,000 which is nearly half the population on Alberta. There is no way there could be 2 teams in Alberta.... ptch

Plus Football is only played for 4 - 5 months of the year. As you said, 9 games. Hockey there is 41 so obviously there is going to be a greater demand for fans...

Plus if there were 41 football games in a year we would still probably average over 20,000 people a game. I would likely make it to more games if there were more of them. In the summer it is tough to get to a rider game if you live in Saskatoon. First of all I think they have 22,000 season tickets sold, and second of all there is a lot of things that compete with my time in the summer, like golf, boating, the lake etc... Just like it would had I live in Pheonix. BUT

It snowed today, it's May 8th for F@ck sakes. And there is nothing to do here in the winter, so that will obviously have an impact on ticket sales as well.

+ There is plenty of corporate wealth in Saskatchewan. PCS, Cameco, All our glorious government run corporations which will gladly blow money on advertising (AKA Tickets) . Federated Co-op, Areva, Credit Unions, and a slew of Jr. Companies siting on a tonne of valuable resources that the world needs.

If anything it could impact Edmonton season ticket sales. But probably not.

Your delusional. If the NHL didn't work in other comparable "traditional" markets like Winnipeg and Quebec, it's laughable to suggest that it will work in a city a fraction their size. Hell, it barely survived in Ed/cal/ott.

If you think government run corporations are going to purchase large sums of tickets you've got another thing coming.

[Reed Solomon]

you know, the mts centre is owned by the guys who own the moose. now, the mts centre has the last few years been one of the top concert venues in north america. now, certainly there are operating costs, but concession profits, etc, from that and moose games and tim hortons and arby's rent and from the powerhouse building bar/vlt's, surely chipman has made money off of the MTS centre. Yes there are investors, but its been a few years now, is it documented how profitable the MTS centre has been? How much money do they have in the bank to potentially invest in an NHL team?

I doubt its an immediate possibility, but people in the NHL don't dismiss Winnipeg as easily as some online folks and people from Winnipeg do. Something just gets my spider-senses tingling about this. The biggest problem with Phoenix is the fact that they don't own the building. Chipman owns the building. Ballsillie will probably build his own building. He's not an idiot, he knows he'll make money. I dunno, Manitoba could more than make up for a smaller arena size with reasonably priced pay per view HD games in neighbouring markets including north dakota/saskatchewan/western ontario/rest of manitoba.

[feepa]

Just wondering, what is the salary of all the manitoba moose? Now lets see. What is the salary cap in the NHL?

?HrMM!M!M>!>>!>!>!>???!?!??! Just because one level of hockey has been successful, you'll assume all levels of hockey must be able to make it a go.

MTS Center was designed specifically smaller then NHL sized arenas. It's very profitable for the moose, but would not make it in the NHL with NHL level salaries.

case dismissed.

[rrskylar]

^ It always struck me as odd (actually downright stupid and shortsighted) that the MTS centre was built without the expectation of ever landing an NHL team. To say that Winnipeg could compete with other Canadian NHL cities who all draw 18,000 and more per game with our puny 15,000 seat arena is delusional.


PS Looks like Hamilton might of had it right after all (albeit it was a long time coming) in building an NHL sized arena!

[hexrae]

I remember being fairly disappointed to hear of the MTS Centre capacity. I've come to figure that they succumbed to their own realizations. I mean, for the Moose, the 2nd deck is only opened for season openers, last game of the season, playoffs and the special events. Granted, a case could be made that it's only AHL hockey, thus the lower attendances.

At this point, I guess we can only hope for an expansion. But, if possible, that would mean encroachment upon Donald, Hargrave and Graham.

[Distill3d]

See, I've never understood how a 16,000 seat arena is considered too small for NHL standards. Especially when these teams in the sun belt could benefit from smaller arenas. Its 2,000 seats less than Vancouver's GM Place, but at the same time, its also in Winnipeg, where there is 2 Million less people than Vancouver. I'd have to say that the arena itself is perfect for the market it serves. Either way you look at it, a team in Winnipeg in a 16,000 seat arena would still mean 13,000 more fans in seats than a team in Phoenix with am 18,000 seat arena.

[newflyer]

I don't think the missing 2000 upper deck cheap seats is really holding Winnipeg back. Yes it would be nice if they dared to dream bigger when they planed the new arena, but how many more rows of seats would it take to add the 2000 seats in question... 3,4,5 ???

[MooseJets]

Originally Posted by feepa

Just wondering, what is the salary of all the manitoba moose? Now lets see. What is the salary cap in the NHL?

?HrMM!M!M>!>>!>!>!>???!?!??! Just because one level of hockey has been successful, you'll assume all levels of hockey must be able to make it a go.

MTS Center was designed specifically smaller then NHL sized arenas. It's very profitable for the moose, but would not make it in the NHL with NHL level salaries.

case dismissed.

Moose have a combined payroll of more than $4.2 million.

Wed, April 15, 2009
Hey big spenders

Opening the vault has helped put Moose on top

Three players on one-way, NHL contracts, one earning $1.3 million.

Three more with six-figure deals.

A backup goalie making $650,000.

Is it just me, or have the Manitoba Moose become the American Hockey League's big spenders? The New York Yankees of minor-league hockey.

OK, so that's a stretch.

But a close examination of AHL salaries, obtained by the Sun, reveals some rather startling numbers.

The AHL's top regular season team has a combined payroll of more than $4.2 million this season.

SIGNIFICANT

A good portion of that, of course, is picked up by Manitoba's NHL parent club, the Vancouver Canucks. But not all of it.

Most significant is the $605,000 star forward Jason Krog is collecting.

Krog, like injured forward Michel Ouellet and goalie Curtis Sanford, is on a one-way NHL deal, which means he earns the same amount whether he's here or in Vancouver.

But unlike Ouellet and Sanford, the Moose agreed to pick up all of Krog's salary when he's here -- easily the fattest contract the Moose have ever paid out.

"That's fair to say," owner Mark Chipman said yesterday. "It was unique this year, for sure. The franchise has been financially stable enough to invest in players."

Why the looser purse strings, you ask?

"We're trying to win," Chipman said.

Who do these guys think they are, the Chicago Wolves?

I remember when the Wolves were the evil empire, outspending everybody in the old IHL, and how it had the Moose climbing the walls every spring when they lost to Chicago in the playoffs.

If you want to point the finger at somebody now, maybe it's the Moose -- the best AHL team money can buy.

I mean, there aren't a lot of deals like Krog's out there.

The next-highest salary we could find in the AHL's top 20 scorers was that of Grand Rapids' Darren Haydar, who pocketed $335,000.

Krog ranked third in AHL scoring with 86 points this season. Hershey's Keith Aucoin was second, but he earned just $200,000, one-third Krog's ticket.

Chipman says Manitoba's overall payroll is not dramatically different than in the last few years, but it is higher.

Maybe even the highest of the AHL's independently owned teams, although that's difficult to know. Contracts for players signing AHL-only deals, apart from the NHL, aren't readily available.

The Moose are relatively frugal when it comes to AHL deals, captain Mike Keane's $75,000 paycheque leading the way (although they did shell out $100,000 for goaltender Karl Goehring, since traded).

By comparison, we know of at least four players from other teams who earned $200,000-plus on AHL-only contracts (two of them, Jamie Rivers and Steve Martins, in Chicago).

But we don't know of another AHL roster that carries six players with salaries of more than $200,000, like the Moose do.

"It's one of the highest paid teams I've definitely played on," six-figure forward Jason Jaffray said. "The guys they brought in, you're really not rolling the dice with."

Not coincidentally, they finished first overall.

Forward Guillaume Desbiens has to be the bargain of the year, 17th on the salary chart with $50,000, but No. 4 in team scoring.

Michael Grabner scored 30 goals, the same as Krog, but earned barely one-tenth the pay of Krog, with $62,500.

How about AHL goalie-of-the-year Cory Schneider, earning a paltry $70,000 on his two-way Vancouver deal, while Sanford, his backup going into the playoffs, collects more than half a million bucks?

We bring all this up as the Moose prepare to face the Toronto Marlies in Game 1 of the first round of the playoffs, here, tonight.

By virtue of finishing first, this team already has a target on its back.

Now, it appears, there's a dollar sign, too.

---

MOOSE PAY

THE BIG ONE

M. Ouellet $1.3 million

THE FAB FIVE

C. Sanford $650,000

J. Krog $605,000

M. Cullen $250,000

N. Baumgartner $225,000

J. Jaffray $100,000

THE REST

M. Fortunas $85,000

M. Keane $75,000

N. McIver $75,000

C. Schneider $70,000

A. Bolduc $65,000

R. Sawada $65,000

M. Fistric $62,500

M. Grabner $62,500

D. Rahimi $62,500

S. Heshka $55,000

M. Bliznak $50,000

G. Desbiens $50,000

Z. Fitzgerald $50,000

T. Ramsey $45,000

P.C. Labrie $42,500

D. Collins $40,000

T. Maxwell $40,000

G. Rallo $40,000

(Thanks to NHLSCAP.com for its salary information)


http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Columnists/Friesen/2009/04/15/9120936-sun.html

[rrskylar]

Originally Posted by hexrae

I remember being fairly disappointed to hear of the MTS Centre capacity. I've come to figure that they succumbed to their own realizations. I mean, for the Moose, the 2nd deck is only opened for season openers, last game of the season, playoffs and the special events. Granted, a case could be made that it's only AHL hockey, thus the lower attendances.

At this point, I guess we can only hope for an expansion. But, if possible, that would mean encroachment upon Donald, Hargrave and Graham.

From what I remember hearing when they built the MTS centre was that there was no room for expansion, actually one of the downsides to the Eaton's site.

[RAFS]

Originally Posted by rrskylar

From what I remember hearing when they built the MTS centre was that there was no room for expansion, actually one of the downsides to the Eaton's site.

Actually, I remember hearing there WAS room for expansion. Just can't remember where.

Anyhow, my first thought about the size of the MTS Centre is "who determines the standard NHL size?". Maybe, just maybe, those other NHL cities arenas are too big.

On the other hand, when I listened to the Blackhawks game the other day, and there are over 22,000 screaming fans, I think maybe it IS too small for the NHL.

Guess I'll just be stuck here on the fence for a while

[hexrae]

Another issue beyond regular seats is suites. If there was room for expansion, then how about a row of suites above the 2nd deck, and a 3rd deck beyond that? That's probably way too much of a stretch, but if you're going to dream for an NHL franchise, then why not go big?

[SHOFEAR]

Originally Posted by rrskylar

^ It always struck me as odd (actually downright stupid and shortsighted) that the MTS centre was built without the expectation of ever landing an NHL team. To say that Winnipeg could compete with other Canadian NHL cities who all draw 18,000 and more per game with our puny 15,000 seat arena is delusional.


PS Looks like Hamilton might of had it right after all (albeit it was a long time coming) in building an NHL sized arena!

Stupid or the smartest move ever. No other group is going to build an arena in the foreseeable future. Chipman has the monopoly on pro hockey and from an investor standpoint he could opperate the moose and probably make a couple million a year. Why would he give that up for an NHL team that may (which i doubt) be able to make money?

I suppose it sucks that he's not some guy like Basille or Katz who has dreamed of owning an NHL team and has the money to play with the big boys, but whatever, It doesn't make me loose sleep at night.

[Distill3d]

Originally Posted by RAFS

Anyhow, my first thought about the size of the MTS Centre is "who determines the standard NHL size?". Maybe, just maybe, those other NHL cities arenas are too big.

On the other hand, when I listened to the Blackhawks game the other day, and there are over 22,000 screaming fans, I think maybe it IS too small for the NHL.

Guess I'll just be stuck here on the fence for a while

There should be different standards for different markets. Though in the States most NHL teams share arena's with NBA teams, and lets face it basketball is a bigger sport. In Atlanta, the Hawks can draw in 19,500 for a game while the Thrashers bring in 10,000. However, the decision makers don't see things that way. They see that New Jersey has the Nets and the Devils, and both teams do well, and sell out games. So rather than push for smaller venues to sell the game, they operate at a loss because no one is coming to the games. And that has become the problem with expansion in states like Florida, Georgia, Arizona and Tennesee. The novelty of the team wore off after a few years, and now the owners need to find new ways to fill seats, rather than push for smaller venues.

NHL in Winnipeg could survive long term in the MTS Center. True, it is a smaller venue, but Winnipeg is a smaller market. There isn't enough people in Winnipeg yet to justify a 22,000 seat arena. When Winnipeg reaches 1 million people, then its time to start thinking of a bigger arena. I also think that should be considered a selling feature to any potential franchise and team owner, having a smaller arena. Its easier to sell out games.

[feepa]

Its not really the 15,000 seats. Its the lack of luxury suites. It's also the NHL sized salaries. $36 M is the minimum salary cap. (or there abouts... cant remember the exact figure) 56 M is the estimated cap for next season. Compare that with the moose who have a total 4.2 M.

I'd be happy the Moose are so well run, and usually ice a very competitive fun to watch team.

[rypinion]

Originally Posted by feepa

Its not really the 15,000 seats. Its the lack of luxury suites.

Umm, what lack of luxury suites? The MTS Centre has 48 suites.

[Fierce]

Originally Posted by feepa

I'd be happy the Moose are so well run, and usually ice a very competitive fun to watch team.

Why should we be "happy" with the Moose? I'm not. That is a very funny (and hypocritical) comment coming from an Albertan, where my impression is that people are always striving for the best. Why should it be any different in Manitoba? And why should Winnipeggers have to "settle", but Albertan's can "shoot for the stars" so to say?

[Fierce]

Originally Posted by esquire

Perhaps we are simply living in the past and wallowing in nostalgia - something that would never, ever happen in the "City of Champions"

(a-heh-heh-heh)

You mean city of chumps

Originally Posted by SHOFEAR

lol. It takes a perfect storm for that "provincial affair" to work for the riders to make coin in a league where costs are a fraction of those in the NHL.

As much fun as it would be to rip on Saskatoon fans for drinkin and tractorin on their way home from a game. No thanks. The Northwest division already is viewed as a remote division that gets minimal coverage. Why any Ed/Cal/Van fan would give that up what little coverage we get thanks to Denver and Minneapolis so people in Winnipeg and the toon can feel included into our special little club is beyond me. Selfish, you bet. But too bad, this is the big leagues and protecting my interest comes first.

The moment I read this guy's comment, I was suddenly blown away by a large volume of hot air.

In all seriousness though, I'd like to keep this discussion on track without a bunch of Alberta trolls coming here and dumping all over Winnipeg. Please and thanks!

[newflyer]

Originally Posted by Fierce

You mean city of chumps



The moment I read this guy's comment, I was suddenly blown away by a large volume of hot air.

In all seriousness though, I'd like to keep this discussion on track without a bunch of Alberta trolls coming here and dumping all over Winnipeg. Please and thanks!

I agree whole heartedly .... lets keep in mind Winnipeg has a much larger corporate base than Edmonton. Manitoba's economy has been and still is among the fastest growing in the nation for the last number of years. Has the lowest unemployement rate (April) in the west, with growing business while the oil industry and supporting industries retreat in their tracks. Winnipeg's economy has entered a new era of growth and the revival of NHL hockey is a natural progression as time moves forward. Its not a matter of if, only a matter of when. The facts remain and Winnipeg will continue to grow into a more significant market, while the weak NHL markets will be looking to relocate during this recession.