Stadiums and Arenas of Canada part 2

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Dr Awesomesauce

On the other hand, I happen to think (based on nothing but my gut) that a second NHL team in the GTA, would be a total flop. Why would somebody in Mississauga or Brampton suddenly start rooting for the 'Ontario Hockey Pucks' or whatever they'd be called?

The question for the NHL is whether or not the net return from adding another team is great enough to justify the cost, not whether or not a new team would be able to make enough money to survive. How much would a new team in Brampton really grow the hockey market in the GTA instead of just cannibalizing the existing market?

I could imagine a situation resulting in an NHL team in Halifax, because there are no other similar teams around and because it is a provincial capital with the capacity to pay an exorbitant amount of money in subsidies. But there isn't much interest in that kind of spending there. That's why there is no CFL team, even though the city could easily get a loan tomorrow for a few hundred million dollars and build a fairly fancy stadium (with the province on board they could spend $500M-1B). I hope for the sake of the city and province that there aren't any sports-crazed governments that try to do that sort of thing. Maybe one day there will somehow be sensible pro sports markets that more people can participate in. Even then though, it makes a lot more sense for cities to spend money on amateur sport and athletic facilities to get people to go out and be active (and hockey probably has one of the worst cost-benefit ratios for that kind of thing; the facilities are expensive, the gear is expensive, and not many people get to play).

[SaskScraper]

Originally Posted by someone123

The question for the NHL is whether or not the net return from adding another team is great enough to justify the cost, not whether or not a new team would be able to make enough money to survive. How much would a new team in Brampton really grow the hockey market in the GTA instead of just cannibalizing the existing market?

I could imagine a situation resulting in an NHL team in Halifax, because there are no other similar teams around and because it is a provincial capital with the capacity to pay an exorbitant amount of money in subsidies. But there isn't much interest in that kind of spending there. That's why there is no CFL team, even though the city could easily get a loan tomorrow for a few hundred million dollars and build a fairly fancy stadium (with the province on board they could spend $500M-1B). I hope for the sake of the city and province that there aren't any sports-crazed governments that try to do that sort of thing. Maybe one day there will somehow be sensible pro sports markets that more people can participate in. Even then though, it makes a lot more sense for cities to spend money on amateur sport and athletic facilities to get people to go out and be active (and hockey probably has one of the worst cost-benefit ratios for that kind of thing; the facilities are expensive, the gear is expensive, and not many people get to play).

I agree, I can't really see the NHL splitting the Maple Leaf's or the Sabre's market into smaller pieces of the pie either, thats why a team in Markham or Hamilton probably doesn't make much sense.

I think the biggest hurdle for Halifax is Atlantic Canada hasn't had any experience with larger pro sports leagues, like Regina has. If Halifax's basketball team could consistently sell out their 10,000 seat arena or if Halifax could try and go the route like Saskatoon and get an NLL team and sellout the arena each time like the Rush, then that would be a good indication NHL could be supported by Atlantic Canada, . I'd love to see Halifax get NHL or CFL some day, but spending $400 million on a new stadium like Saskatchewan just did would probably be political suicide in an untested market.

[Nathan]

Originally Posted by SaskScraper

I agree, I can't really see the NHL splitting the Maple Leaf's or the Sabre's market into smaller pieces of the pie either, thats why a team in Markham or Hamilton probably doesn't make much sense.

I think the biggest hurdle for Halifax is Atlantic Canada hasn't had any experience with larger pro sports leagues, like Regina has. If Halifax's basketball team could consistently sell out their 10,000 seat arena or if Halifax could try and go the route like Saskatoon and get an NLL team and sellout the arena each time like the Rush, then that would be a good indication NHL could be supported by Atlantic Canada, . I'd love to see Halifax get NHL or CFL some day, but spending $400 million on a new stadium like Saskatchewan just did would probably be political suicide in an untested market.

It was a bit under $300 mill... For $400, we could have added the retractable roof.

They could always go with the Toronto or Hamilton model and do something a bit less expensive though. But yes, there'd still be the same issue with public approval. Even the Regina stadium had a decent amount of detractors, vocal, but in the end, they were in the minority.

[Horus]

Originally Posted by Acajack

It's true, but looking at most NHL clubs and their attendance, local passion for hockey is a big factor in attendance, regardless of whether those people come from half an hour away or five hours away. Smaller hockey-mad markets like Winnipeg, Calgary, Buffalo, Ottawa and Edmonton generally do better at the gate than significantly larger hockey-indifferent ones like Phoenix, Miami, Atlanta (back in the day), etc.

Actually, Ottawa is a good example. I would agree with your statement that Ottawa is a smaller NHL market and that it would be fair to designate the population as "hockey-mad". However, even hockey-mad Ottawa is having difficulty with attendance this year, despite the good performance of the team this season.

Some figures (source from Hockey-Reference.com)
Ottawa arena capacity: 19,153 - 11th largest in NHL
Average attendance this season: 16,561 - 21st in NHL
% capacity: 86.5% - 24th in NHL

By % capacity, Ottawa is ahead of only Colorado (worst team in the league), New Jersey (having a bad season), Islanders (arguably the worst arena in the league), Florida (having a bad season - historically never attracts fans), Arizona (bad team - historically never attracts fans) and Carolina (having another bad season - historically never attracts fans).

Ottawa has trouble attracting fans to weekday games, and that's with 1 million + people located within a 1 hour drive to the arena, not to mention 100,000's of people having the option to take public transit to the game (this will not be a discussion of how bad it is to take transit to Senators games).

I can't imagine that Saskatchewan, which provincially has a similar population to metro Ottawa , being able to consistently draw NHL-sized crowds on a regular basis when the population is spread out over such a large area. If people in so-called "hockey-mad" Ottawa are hardly willing to drive 20-30 km to go to a weeknight NHL game on a regular basis, I can't imagine that Regina residents would be willing to drive 10x that distance to do the same.

[esquire]

^ Being reasonably familiar with both Ottawa and Saskatchewan, I'd say that the mentalities are different from each other. NHL hockey in Ottawa is one of many attractions in that region. By contrast, NHL hockey in Saskatchewan would become a cause. It's actually a clever selling technique... you think that smaller Canadian markets like Winnipeg and Edmonton would pack the joint year after year, paying high prices to watch crappy teams (obviously things have changed in Edmonton this year, but still) if they didn't have some kind of point to prove?

[J.OT13]

Good points regarding the a second GTA team. New York City is case in point, with 20 million people, the metropolitan region has 3 NHL teams. The original tops the NHL in value while the other two are struggling. This might be because the other 2 teams suck, might be, for the Islander's at least, because the arena sucks.

On the other hand, maybe a second GTA team would do well since it's pretty much impossible to obtain a ticket to see the Leafs. Supply and Demand.

In any case, I think Hamilton would do well, since they are the only city of significant size within the GTA that has its own identity.

I still believe Saskatchewan could support a team 10-15 years down the line when the population pushes to the 1.5 million mark and the oil industry is back on the up-swing.

Halifax though, I have my doubts. The City is still below half a million, growth is a little slower, there's a lack of big industry. There are no other big cities within easy driving distance. But maybe 25-30 years down the line, it might be plausible.

[wave46]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ Being reasonably familiar with both Ottawa and Saskatchewan, I'd say that the mentalities are different from each other. NHL hockey in Ottawa is one of many attractions in that region. By contrast, NHL hockey in Saskatchewan would become a cause. It's actually a clever selling technique... you think that smaller Canadian markets like Winnipeg and Edmonton would pack the joint year after year, paying high prices to watch crappy teams (obviously things have changed in Edmonton this year, but still) if they didn't have some kind of point to prove?

The knock against Saskatchewan is that relative to Manitoba, the population is dispersed. If Saskatchewan had one central, concentrated city (like Winnipeg), it would have a much better case for an NHL team.

I don't think the comparison to the CFL is necessarily accurate either. For 9-10 games per year (most of which are on weekends), people will drive for a spectacle/event, especially when lacking other options. The history of the Roughriders plays a key role there too. Doing the same thing for 40+ games per year for a new NHL team in the dead of winter on weekdays isn't workable for most.

[khabibulin]

Originally Posted by SaskScraper

I know people that drive the 2 hours between the cities on a regular basis, Rider season tickets from Saskatoonians isn't uncommon, but majority of season's tickets would definitely be in Saskatoon for potential NHL team. Group season tickets amongst a number of people in places like Regina wouldn't be uncommon either. I think Saskatchewan would welcome the NHL with open arms like they did the virtually unheard of NLL in the province before they came to town

My sense is that no intrapreneur has appetite for bringing in province's own NHL team since back in the day when NHL organization vetoed sale of the St Louis Blues to Bill Hunter of Saskatoon in the eleventh hour back in the 1980's.

$500 million arena and $500 million expansion entry fee is a major hurdle.

[SaskScraper]

Originally Posted by Horus

Actually, Ottawa is a good example. I would agree with your statement that Ottawa is a smaller NHL market and that it would be fair to designate the population as "hockey-mad". However, even hockey-mad Ottawa is having difficulty with attendance this year, despite the good performance of the team this season.

Some figures (source from Hockey-Reference.com)
Ottawa arena capacity: 19,153 - 11th largest in NHL
Average attendance this season: 16,561 - 21st in NHL
% capacity: 86.5% - 24th in NHL

By % capacity, Ottawa is ahead of only Colorado (worst team in the league), New Jersey (having a bad season), Islanders (arguably the worst arena in the league), Florida (having a bad season - historically never attracts fans), Arizona (bad team - historically never attracts fans) and Carolina (having another bad season - historically never attracts fans).

Ottawa has trouble attracting fans to weekday games, and that's with 1 million + people located within a 1 hour drive to the arena, not to mention 100,000's of people having the option to take public transit to the game (this will not be a discussion of how bad it is to take transit to Senators games).

I can't imagine that Saskatchewan, which provincially has a similar population to metro Ottawa , being able to consistently draw NHL-sized crowds on a regular basis when the population is spread out over such a large area. If people in so-called "hockey-mad" Ottawa are hardly willing to drive 20-30 km to go to a weeknight NHL game on a regular basis, I can't imagine that Regina residents would be willing to drive 10x that distance to do the same.

Ottawa is probably the worst example of what Saskatchewan sports appetite would be like considering the Ottawa Roughriders is the team that couldn't make it & folded and the Saskatchewan Roughriders is the team that has one of the highest attendances and the most successful team in the league, especially when considering the merchandise sales side of the team.

Interesting that you would point out that Colorado Avalanche have worst attendance in NHL with 14,900, but the Colorado Mammoth have one of the best attendances in NLL Lacrosse league at 13,800..
http://www.espn.com/nhl/attendance
http://www.insidelacrosse.com/article/nll-attendance-climbs-2-in-2016/35644

Ottawa has a past of being very fickle in regards to pro sports, Ottawa's venture into the world of NLL lacrosse from 2001-2003 with the Rebel's team was underwhelming to say the least. And last year Ottawa could barely even sell 3,200 to a lacrosse game to test the waters if Ottawa could support a team again. Meanwhile Sask Rush Lacrosse routinely sells out its 15,200 facility during its Winter Lacrosse season.

http://ottawacitizen.com/sports/local-sp...-lacrosse-league-tests-the-ottawa-waters

Ottawa & Saskatchewan residents couldn't be on two more different planes of existence on how they treat pro sports.

[OTSkyline]

Ottawa sadly has two things right now going against it in terms of attendance;

1) With the new plans for the downtown arena, a lot of people seem kind of happy with not going to a game for a year or two waiting for the new DT arena to open. Before the DT arena announcements, fans had no choice and knew this was the only option but now that there's a better and brighter horizon, they seem content to wait it out.

2) Ottawa's major employment sector is government, so they don't have company boxes, or hand out corporate seats or hand out tickets to clients or employees etc.. like other private corporations would. We have very little "head offices" to fuel those kinds of tickets/seats (unlike Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton, etc...)

[EpicPonyTime]

Cool the jets on the Saskatoon NHL talks, it isn't going to happen.

A lot of the problems with comparing the NHL/CFL are the same if you substitute the NLL in. The Rush only play on weekends and they are a cheap game to go see. I don't see how someone can look at their situation and think it transfers over to a possible NHL team. It's been repeated plenty of times, but there will be weekday games and the ticket prices will be significantly higher. The Rush (and to a lesser extent, Blades) benefit from being a reasonable night out for families and friends. A NHL team would not be reasonable.

Originally Posted by SaskScraper

I think that was the initial fear when the Rush took residence in the same facility as the S'toon Blades, would a Rush fan go the next day to the same coliseum to see the Blades and visa versa.

But much like the Winnipeg Jets & Manitoba Moose the Rush & Blades seem to make it work and can even play off each others success.

Hardly. If anything the Rush has hurt the Blades from both an attendance and marketing standpoint. It's a lot harder to cheer for an expensive and woefully inept junior team when a pro team comes in and does everything better in its first year. I know plenty of people who have dropped their Blades season tickets for Rush tickets, solely because you get more bang for your buck.

[SaskScraper]

Originally posted by EpicPonyTime
Cool the jets on the Saskatoon NHL talks, it isn't going to happen.

interesting choice of wording..
I personally wouldn't want the extra expense of having an NHL team in Sask & don't think Sask will get an NHL team anytime soon but find people's self deprecating excuses of lack of Sask people's support the reason why as short sighted.

^^ You've mentioned your feelings for the Saskatoon Blades before & I appreciate your despise and contempt for them, the team has missed the playoffs like 4 years in a row, I don't know how the team has really hurt you in the past, thats your business.

As i've mentioned before, having an NHL team doesn't mean that to watch the team everybody has to buy only season tickets package & go to all 40 games, some people will but a lot of people will either split seasons tickets among a group or buy individual tickets per game.
To put it into perspective for everyone, any given NHL teams attendance is about double Riders attendance each year. It equates to about for every Rider seat ticket sold in the course of a given year, two NHL tickets sold. Not too difficult to image happening in the Province of Sask especially considering the NHL season begins in September and ends generally in May, a lot of those months easy for traveling.

Again just to review the math, for every Rider ticket sold, two NHL tickets sold. Manitoba does it.

[LeTravailleur]

Place Bell, Laval

[king10]

another Quebec rink trying to replicate the stunning 1980's masterpiece that is copps colliseum?

[SkydivePilot]

Originally Posted by SaskScraper

interesting choice of wording..
I personally wouldn't want the extra expense of having an NHL team in Sask & don't think Sask will get an NHL team anytime soon but find people's self deprecating excuses of lack of Sask people's support the reason why as short sighted.

^^ You've mentioned your feelings for the Saskatoon Blades before & I appreciate your despise and contempt for them, the team has missed the playoffs like 4 years in a row, I don't know how the team has really hurt you in the past, thats your business.

As i've mentioned before, having an NHL team doesn't mean that to watch the team everybody has to buy only season tickets package & go to all 40 games, some people will but a lot of people will either split seasons tickets among a group or buy individual tickets per game.
To put it into perspective for everyone, any given NHL teams attendance is about double Riders attendance each year. It equates to about for every Rider seat ticket sold in the course of a given year, two NHL tickets sold. Not too difficult to image happening in the Province of Sask especially considering the NHL season begins in September and ends generally in May, a lot of those months easy for traveling.

Again just to review the math, for every Rider ticket sold, two NHL tickets sold. Manitoba does it.

I have heard that the threshold distance for an NHL team is 80 kilometers; that would knock Regina out. Moreover, 40 games during the winter vs 10 Rider home games during the summer--- that would be a tough sell to the NHL. Give Saskatoon another 25 years, maybe then. (Above the 35 years that Saskatoon has already pined for an NHL team.)

[Dr Awesomesauce]

Re an NHL team in the GTA

To those who think this might work, I have a couple questions for you to ponder:

*Is the contention that the region is filled with rabid hockey fans who are NOT Leaf fans and that these fans are looking for another outlet for their puck-crazed passion?

*Or is the premise that getting a ticket to a game is nearly impossible, so Leaf fans would automatically buy tickets for a new team based out of Markham or some other non-place?

Watching NHL hockey live is a lot of fun. People would likely buy tickets, it's true. I'm just not sure it's enough to draw significant numbers of notoriously fickle suburban Toronto hockey fans to an arena in the middle of a farmer's field.

NB - In the spirit of fairness, similar questions could be posed to those who think NHL hockey would work in Hamilton. The assumption that people from around the region (Oakville, Burlington, Guelph, K-W-C, London, Niagara) would support a team based out of Hamilton may not be as clear-cut as one might think.

[MonctonRad]

Moncton Events Centre from a couple of days ago.

The exterior is nearly complete, but we are still 15 months away from opening date. They have just recently cleared off the equipment from the front of the building area so that they can begin construction of the Highfield Street extension and the plaza in front of the centre.

They will soon begin bidding for naming rights for the facility, so in about 6 months we should know which corporation or consumer product the centre will be named after.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Dr Awesomesauce

Re an NHL team in the GTA

To those who think this might work, I have a couple questions for you to ponder:

*Is the contention that the region is filled with rabid hockey fans who are NOT Leaf fans and that these fans are looking for another outlet for their puck-crazed passion?

*Or is the premise that getting a ticket to a game is nearly impossible, so Leaf fans would automatically buy tickets for a new team based out of Markham or some other non-place?

Watching NHL hockey live is a lot of fun. People would likely buy tickets, it's true. I'm just not sure it's enough to draw significant numbers of notoriously fickle suburban Toronto hockey fans to an arena in the middle of a farmer's field.

NB - In the spirit of fairness, similar questions could be posed to those who think NHL hockey would work in Hamilton. The assumption that people from around the region (Oakville, Burlington, Guelph, K-W-C, London, Niagara) would support a team based out of Hamilton may not be as clear-cut as one might think.

For the GTA, scenario 2. The demand for hockey is huge in the Toronto area and I have no doubt a second team would fill the arena no problem. That said, I think most people would stick with the Leafs as their #1, but over time, the younger (born after 2010) generation might adopt the new team as their fav.

I think a team in Hamilton would be more like Ottawa. The City itself, and possibly a few of its suburbs would convert to "Hamilton Tigers" fans, but everyone else in the Golden Horseshoe and Southern Ontario would likely stick with the Leafs. They would however, have less trouble filling the seats, because of rabid hockey fans who would settle for a Hamilton game since they can't get a ticket to the Air Canada Centre.

As for the question of people attending games in some suburban wasteland or farmers field (which has been an issue here in Ottawa), I counter with Go Train. If you build on a Go Train Line and ensure adequate service during games, you're golden.

[J.OT13]

A solution for Saskatchewan, and obviously I understand the huge expense this entails, would be to build a rail line between Regina and Saskatoon. Doesn't even have to be high speed. Currently, VIA can travel up to 170 km/h in the Québec City to Windsor corridor. Trains are capable of reaching 200 km/h. This isn't just useful to secure the viability of a plausible NHL franchise, but would also work well for tourism and business. I know I'm getting way off track and we could jump into a huge debate about rail travel between other major cities. Just a thought.

[thurmas]

We as a country cant even get a rail line between Edmonton and Calgary which encompasses over 2.6 million people when combining their 2 Metro populations, and you want a rail line between Saskatoon and Regina which is maybe what 600,000 people?