[Moncton] Centre Avenir Centre | 26.65m |~6 Fl | Completed

[BlackYear]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Russia has lost the World Juniors this December because of the war in Ukraine. Canada has been asked by the IIHF to step into the breach.

Apparently Halifax and Moncton are going to mount a joint bid. There is not much time to lose. Hockey Canada has to decide on host cities by the end of April.

That would be a big time boost to the Moncton downtown area. Avenir Center, surrounding restaurants, hotels & bars could sure use it.

[josh_cat_eyes]

Originally Posted by JonHiseler

That would be nice to have here, though I think they'd have a hard time competing against that rumoured joint bid between Ottawa and Quebec City.

An Ottawa-Quebec City bid doesnt make any sense lol. Mind you the Toronto-Montreal joint events didn’t make any sense either and they did that twice.

[JonHiseler]

Originally Posted by josh_cat_eyes

An Ottawa-Quebec City bid doesnt make any sense lol. Mind you the Toronto-Montreal joint events didn’t make any sense either and they did that twice.

Yeah, especially considering that any one of those cities could just host it on their own. At any rate, I think Gord Miller from TSN said that this Moncton-Halifax joint bid is apparently the favourite one out of the 4 that are floating around. (one of which was a Vancouver-Seattle joint bid, which strikes me as a little weird.)

[josh_cat_eyes]

Originally Posted by JonHiseler

Yeah, especially considering that any one of those cities could just host it on their own. At any rate, I think Gord Miller from TSN said that this Moncton-Halifax joint bid is apparently the favourite one out of the 4 that are floating around. (one of which was a Vancouver-Seattle joint bid, which strikes me as a little weird.)

I think that Halifax having had the women’s world championships taken from them the last 2 years combined with Moncton having a brand new arena certainly help the case to be made for the maritimes to host it. I’ve actually been suggesting for a few years that I’d love to see the tournament come here. I think a lot of the games would be sold out, especially the team Canada games.

[L'homard]

I'd be all over this - on the condition that Halifax doesn't get all the Canada and US teams' games while Moncton gets the bottom tier teams.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by L'homard

I'd be all over this - on the condition that Halifax doesn't get all the Canada and US teams' games while Moncton gets the bottom tier teams.

We would be the junior venue, no question, but the difference between a 11,000 seat arena and an 8,800 seat arena isn't much. We should demand some top rate round robin matches, and a good playoff package - perhaps even the bronze medal game.

[SevenSquared]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

We would be the junior venue, no question

No way in hell there should be a junior venue.

This is a once-in-a-lifetime event, one that will absolutely attract thousands of people from far beyond "just" the Moncton area. Capacity is 10,000 vs 8,800, a small difference rendered negligible when you consider Avenir doesn't have a single bad seat in the house, unlike Scotiabank Centre with their dreadful upper bowl.

I'm guessing Moncton must have roughly 800,000 people within 90 minutes (SJ/Fred/PEI/Northern NS and everything in between), I can't see Halifax having more than that within 90 minutes. This is exactly the type of event where the hub city concept puts us on a level playing field with Halifax.

From a potential revenue standpoint, it makes much more sense to do what they did for the Toronto-Montreal world juniors in 2017: have one city host all of Canada's round-robin games, and have the other city host all their playoff games. Take advantage of the fact that you have two separate regions with more than enough population to sell out both buildings from tournament packages, as long as you entice them with 3 Canada games each during the tournament.

[bridgeoftea]

Originally Posted by SevenSquared

No way in hell there should be a junior venue.

This is a once-in-a-lifetime event, one that will absolutely attract thousands of people from far beyond "just" the Moncton area. Capacity is 10,000 vs 8,800, a small difference rendered negligible when you consider Avenir doesn't have a single bad seat in the house, unlike Scotiabank Centre with their dreadful upper bowl.

I'm guessing Moncton must have roughly 800,000 people within 90 minutes (SJ/Fred/PEI/Northern NS and everything in between), I can't see Halifax having more than that within 90 minutes. This is exactly the type of event where the hub city concept puts us on a level playing field with Halifax.

From a potential revenue standpoint, it makes much more sense to do what they did for the Toronto-Montreal world juniors in 2017: have one city host all of Canada's round-robin games, and have the other city host all their playoff games. Take advantage of the fact that you have two separate regions with more than enough population to sell out both buildings from tournament packages, as long as you entice them with 3 Canada games each during the tournament.

If they are smart that's what they will do!
Put Canada's round robin games in Moncton, which I believe 99% sure, it's going to sell out. And then for the for the knockout rounds try to evenly split it as much as possible, before giving Halifax the Gold and Bronze medal games.

[felip_ars]

Looks like its no longer Quebec City/Ottawa, as Ottawa decided to bid by themselves, so Trois-Rivières is taking their spot, which leads the candidate bids (for now) of:

Québec/Trois-Rivières
Ottawa
Moncton/Halifax
London/Kitchener
Regina/Saskatoon

The news was mention in an article in TVA Sports which has the interesting bits of info, which is that Team Canada requested to play ALL their games in the same arena (Round robin and playoffs).

So no Canada playing in one city while the medals rounds would be play in the other. I checked a few years back and in 2019 (Vancouver/Victoria), Canada played all their games in Vancouver, while Victoria had the other Division and 2 Quarter Final games.

So while Quebec and Saskatoon are pretty sure to be the one getting the Canada games (given the big difference in venue capacity), it will be interesting to see which cities between Moncton/Halifax and London/Kitchener will get Canada/Medals rounds.

[JHikka]

I would assume Halifax and London would get all of the Canada games in those pairings.

[SevenSquared]

Originally Posted by JHikka

I would assume Halifax and London would get all of the Canada games in those pairings.

Now that NB has a suitably sized venue to co-host this tournament, it would seem completely absurd to waste it on Latvia-Slovakia type games every night and their usual sub-2500 turnouts.

If they don't give Moncton any Team Canada games, they would be better off making Saint John the secondary venue; most Moncton area fans who are willing to pay WJHC prices will just end up buying Halifax packages and making the two-hour drive instead.

In terms of revenue, if I'm comparing both options for the bid:

The Halifax option - sell 10,000 packages at $2000 apiece, featuring all 6 Canada games. Make 5-10% of that amount from the NB venue. Even if you somehow manage to sell all those obstructed upper bowl seats in Halifax for a lot of money, you might earn $20M plus 1 or 2 million in NB.

The Halifax-Moncton option - Sell 19,000 packages at a much more affordable $1300ish price point, with 3 Canada games each. You earn nearly $25M and you more than double the population who live close enough to drive down for the games and can justify spending $1300 on a package.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by JHikka

I would assume Halifax and London would get all of the Canada games in those pairings.

Which would be horrible.

I would very seriously have considered buying two World Juniors ticket packages if Canada had played at least some round robin games in Moncton, but if their intent is to be based entirely out of Halifax, then I am not so sure. If Moncton is relegated to hosting Latvia/Slovenian and Kazakstan/Germany games, then I don't imagine it would be worth it. I am very disappointed.

[Monctoncore]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Which would be horrible.

I would very seriously have considered buying two World Juniors ticket packages if Canada had played at least some round robin games in Moncton, but if their intent is to be based entirely out of Halifax, then I am not so sure. If Moncton is relegated to hosting Latvia/Slovenian and Kazakstan/Germany games, then I don't imagine it would be worth it. I am very disappointed.

I don’t think we should think that way, yes it would be disappointing, but at the same time people have to show some support. If and that’s a big if Moncton/Halifax get this, we have to show support no matter what teams are playing. If people don’t show up, then at the end of the day that only looks bad on Moncton and won’t bode well for other tournaments down the road. It would look much better on the city if we embrace this no matter what teams we end up with.

[bridgeoftea]

Originally Posted by Monctoncore

I don’t think we should think that way, yes it would be disappointing, but at the same time people have to show some support. If and that’s a big if Moncton/Halifax get this, we have to show support no matter what teams are playing. If people don’t show up, then at the end of the day that only looks bad on Moncton and won’t bode well for other tournaments down the road. It would look much better on the city if we embrace this no matter what teams we end up with.

I think if they give Moncton the "non" Canada games, I would hope that they price the tickets down enough that would entice more people from Moncton, Saint John, Bathurst, Charlottetown to make the trip down. Living in Saint John if you told me I can go see Kazakhstan vs Germany for $20-$30, absolutely I'm making that drive. If it's $60+ then I would need a bit more consideration on it.

It will be interesting to see!

[felip_ars]

People seems to forgot that there will be "subpar" games in both cities regardless on where Canada is playing. In this year's Canada group (which include Finland, and the Czech), there's also Germany and Austria.

Remember that the second group will include either the winner or the silver medallist of this year's tournament (thinking that Canada will make it to the finals), and will also features some top prospects for the 2023 Draft. In the Top 20 "mock draft", theres 3 US, 3 from Sweden, 1 from Finland, Slovakia and Czech respectively .

So already starting with the mentality that "if theres no Canada, thats a no for me" is not really a good way to see things. There will be quality hockey in both cities regardless on who's make the tournament.

Also, here's a rundown on how the ticket prices could be. Red Deer has a 7k venue, so prices could be similar to Moncton.

https://www.iihf.com/en/events/2022/wm20/static/23912/tickets

[SevenSquared]

Originally Posted by Monctoncore

I don’t think we should think that way, yes it would be disappointing, but at the same time people have to show some support. If and that’s a big if Moncton/Halifax get this, we have to show support no matter what teams are playing. If people don’t show up, then at the end of the day that only looks bad on Moncton and won’t bode well for other tournaments down the road. It would look much better on the city if we embrace this no matter what teams we end up with.

If that happens I'll happily buy tickets for the Halifax games instead, and I'm sure a pretty big portion of locals who are interested in the tournament will be doing the same. Besides, <25% capacity crowds for non-Canada WJHC games are hardly abnormal.

It's common sense for the world juniors: if you have primary & secondary hosts instead of true co-hosts, then you hold the secondary host's games in a small venue (like the ones in Fredericton, Saint John, Bathurst or Truro), and ideally 4+ hours away from the primary host so that the local population isn't as incentivized to buy the "Canada package" instead.

That's not to say there wouldn't be great hockey at the secondary venue as well.... but let's be honest, seeing WJHC Team Canada games is an absolute peak bucket list experience to most hockey fans, especially in this part of the country where we rarely get anything like this. It won't be a hard choice for many fans.

[SevenSquared]

Originally Posted by felip_ars

Also, here's a rundown on how the ticket prices could be. Red Deer has a 7k venue, so prices could be similar to Moncton.

https://www.iihf.com/en/events/2022/wm20/static/23912/tickets

I have a feeling Moncton tickets would be much more expensive than they were in Red Deer.

Unlike the Edmonton-Red Deer tournament, Halifax doesn't have the luxury of having an 18,000-seat building. Organizers would need to compensate for Halifax's small capacity, either by having the Halifax packages be outrageously expensive, or raise prices for the Moncton games.

[CreamOfpumpkin]

Do they only sell packages? are individual tickets only available in the secondary market?

[felip_ars]

Its all packages. People usually use StubHub to get individual tickets.

I was getting tickets for as low as 5$ when the tournament was in Montreal (somewhere they'll never go back to thats for sure lol)

[MonctonRad]

According to the T&T, apparently TSN hockey analysts are saying Moncton/Halifax are still considered the frontrunners to get the World Juniors.

A decision should be coming very soon.