WHL's Kootenay Ice officially relocating to Winnipeg in the 2019-2020 season

[McBackup]

1 hour ago, mpt said:

Yet Chicago Wolves attendance was high for Vancouver prospects and Hamilton Bulldogs (Montreal) have great attendance in Leaf Nation.  

 

Would you rather go see the Islanders or Panthers prospects?  Of course not.  This market isn’t hockey fans, just Canuck fans and only when they are winning.   Its just an excuse to say the reason why no one showed up is because it was the Flames.  Really, no one will show up unless its the Canucks and that won’t even sell out because they can’t even sell out Roger’s Arena and in the last few years in Abbotsford when the Canucks affiliate came to down, they didn’t even sell out then.  Just an excuse.

Rogers Arena cant even sell out now and there is like 3 million people in the lower mainland and you can’t convince 18K to show up, again this market isn’t hockey fans, just Canuck fans and only when they are winning.

 

I respect Oiler, Leaf, Hab and Flames fans, even when they suck, they still show up and support the team.

I know this is a popular narrative among a certain segment of Canucks fans, but it just isn't true. Anecdotal evidence about how your friend doesn't care now that the team is bad or you saw some empty corporate held season tickets on tv are not evidence that its full of fairweather fans. 

 

When Vancouver had the longest sellout streak in the league which included losing seasons, we won't count that because it doesn't fit the narrative. Vancouver being in the top 10 most valuable teams while being in the bottom third of market size, that doesn't count. 

 

When Winnipeg lost their team and then when they got it back couldn't sell out their building thats 3/4 the size of the rest of the league in the playoffs, that doesn't count, their fans are diehard and incredible.

 

When Calgary doesn't sell out their building and is actually out attended by or comparable to Vancouver depending which statistics you look at, despite having the best team in the West, doesn't matter, they're great fans.

 

When Edmonton doesn't sell out their building despite having the greatest player in the world, they're just voting with their wallet. Or how about the fact the Kootenay Ice moved FROM Edmonton in the first place. 

 

Oh look, Montreal isn't selling out this year either, and they're in the playoff hunt. Huh. 

 

Ottawa fans are great, its just that the owner is bad and the building is far that they can't sellout in the Eastern Final.

 

And Toronto, well Toronto is selling out but nevermind the fact that there are more people in Toronto than all of BC. 

 

The Vancouver based BCHL teams, having triple the attendance the Edmonton and Calgary based equivalent AJHL teams and the top attended teams in the equivalent OJHL having comparable attendance to those in the very bottom of the BCHL, well that doesn't fit your narrative, so we'll just ignore that, not to mention the fact that attendance is significantly higher in the BCHL across the board. 

 

The fact that the world juniors here received tremendous praise for the support and attendance they got is meaningless.

 

And of course lets not discount the fact that the minor pro league affiliate of a rival located in a far suburb only drew about 3600 people per game. Truly damning evidence.

 

But Vancouver fans only filling the building to 95% capacity in a down year is CLEAR evidence that the fanbase is full of nothing but worthless casuals. Who also get so mad at the team losing they riot twice. Vancouver fans are both filthy fairweathers who only care about the team when its winning and get so upset by it losing they burn the city down. At the same time. 

 

There are fairweathers literally everywhere, Vancouver is nothing special. Yeah more people hop on the bandwagon when the Canucks are good. But that goes for every other NHL city too. The only difference I've noticed between Canucks fans and other fanbases is for some reason there is a very vocal minority who will never shut up about how terrible Canucks fans are, yet they magically don't include themselves in that number. At that point I have to ask, why associate yourself with vermin such as us? Why not find a new team to cheer for with good, wholesome, dedicated fans such as yourself?

 

And before anyone jumps down my throat about the comparisons to other cities, I am not saying any of the places mentioned are bad hockey markets. They're all GREAT hockey markets. And so is Vancouver. 

[mpt]

6 hours ago, Bitter Melon said:

I know this is a popular narrative among a certain segment of Canucks fans, but it just isn't true. Anecdotal evidence about how your friend doesn't care now that the team is bad or you saw some empty corporate held season tickets on tv are not evidence that its full of fairweather fans. 

 

When Vancouver had the longest sellout streak in the league which included losing seasons, we won't count that because it doesn't fit the narrative. Vancouver being in the top 10 most valuable teams while being in the bottom third of market size, that doesn't count. 

 

When Winnipeg lost their team and then when they got it back couldn't sell out their building thats 3/4 the size of the rest of the league in the playoffs, that doesn't count, their fans are diehard and incredible.

 

When Calgary doesn't sell out their building and is actually out attended by or comparable to Vancouver depending which statistics you look at, despite having the best team in the West, doesn't matter, they're great fans.

 

When Edmonton doesn't sell out their building despite having the greatest player in the world, they're just voting with their wallet. Or how about the fact the Kootenay Ice moved FROM Edmonton in the first place. 

 

Oh look, Montreal isn't selling out this year either, and they're in the playoff hunt. Huh. 

 

Ottawa fans are great, its just that the owner is bad and the building is far that they can't sellout in the Eastern Final.

 

And Toronto, well Toronto is selling out but nevermind the fact that there are more people in Toronto than all of BC. 

 

The Vancouver based BCHL teams, having triple the attendance the Edmonton and Calgary based equivalent AJHL teams and the top attended teams in the equivalent OJHL having comparable attendance to those in the very bottom of the BCHL, well that doesn't fit your narrative, so we'll just ignore that, not to mention the fact that attendance is significantly higher in the BCHL across the board. 

 

The fact that the world juniors here received tremendous praise for the support and attendance they got is meaningless.

 

And of course lets not discount the fact that the minor pro league affiliate of a rival located in a far suburb only drew about 3600 people per game. Truly damning evidence.

 

But Vancouver fans only filling the building to 95% capacity in a down year is CLEAR evidence that the fanbase is full of nothing but worthless casuals. Who also get so mad at the team losing they riot twice. Vancouver fans are both filthy fairweathers who only care about the team when its winning and get so upset by it losing they burn the city down. At the same time. 

 

There are fairweathers literally everywhere, Vancouver is nothing special. Yeah more people hop on the bandwagon when the Canucks are good. But that goes for every other NHL city too. The only difference I've noticed between Canucks fans and other fanbases is for some reason there is a very vocal minority who will never shut up about how terrible Canucks fans are, yet they magically don't include themselves in that number. At that point I have to ask, why associate yourself with vermin such as us? Why not find a new team to cheer for with good, wholesome, dedicated fans such as yourself?

 

And before anyone jumps down my throat about the comparisons to other cities, I am not saying any of the places mentioned are bad hockey markets. They're all GREAT hockey markets. And so is Vancouver. 

Good post, thanks for the enlightenment.

 

On the other hand, I still hate Calgary and I went to a lot of Abbotsford Heat games because I can appreciate a good hockey game and I’d rather go watch a Canadian team I hate then an American team I care nothing about.  Was nice to watch players that you’ll love to hate.  On the other hand it was great to watch Baertschi develop in Abbotsford and look where he is now.

 

If Chicago Wolves could have great attendance with Vancouver players in Chicago, and Hamilton who traditionally has a top 3 crowd turnout with Habs players in Hamilton, no excuse for no one showing up to Flames players in Abbotsford.  The excuse you hear out here is if it was any other team but the Flames; sadly that’s not true, its more like if its any team besides the Canucks I’m not going.  That again poses my arguement that fans in Vancouver are Canuck fans not hockey fans.

[The Lock]

On 1/30/2019 at 8:23 AM, NUCKER67 said:

Low attendance is the reason? Do they really think Winnipeggers are going to come out in droves to watch the WHL when it's -50 (with the wind chill) outside? 

Yeah, it's not like they have an NHL team and an AHL team to cheer for or anything. How could they possibly support a WHL team if they just stay inside all day! 

[milk and honey]

On 1/31/2019 at 3:35 PM, The Lock said:

Yeah, it's not like they have an NHL team and an AHL team to cheer for or anything. How could they possibly support a WHL team if they just stay inside all day! 

isn't that what u guys do in Prince George? Bunch of home business and home schooler people u up there? 

 

for real though. snow doesn't stop the rest of canada as it does to the lower mainland. 2inches of snow and its a snow day. rest of canada laughs at that.

[Monty]

On 1/31/2019 at 3:07 AM, Bitter Melon said:

When Winnipeg lost their team and then when they got it back couldn't sell out their building thats 3/4 the size of the rest of the league in the playoffs, that doesn't count, their fans are diehard and incredible.

When did this happen? Because as I recall, unless I was in my ticket group, getting playoff tickets was not possible. You know due to sellouts.

 

Now, if you’re referring to the WCF game where roughly 125 seats were empty, those were a combination of corporate sponsored seats and third party resellers (ie: StubHub). All seats that were called for by season ticket holders and walk ups were sold.