If you haven't got a fan base by now.....you ain't getting one!!!

[ClusterFreak]

Just listening to a sports talk radio show up here in the Great White North....and heard some suit from the Tampa Bay Lightning (of the NHL for the uninitiated) saying they were working hard to "build up their fan base". Hey buddy!! Gotta news flash for ya!! Your team has been in the league for 14 years....and you still haven't managed to establish a fan base....guess what....your pissing into the trade winds!!! It ain't gonna happen!!! Same goes for markets like Raleigh-Durham (Carolina Hurricanes), Columbus, Atlanta, Phoenix and others across the south. I'm not against expansion into more U.S. markets, but for gawd sakes, be smart about it!! Try places like the pacific northwest, Wisconsin, the northeast....places where there are actually people who understand and enjoy hockey.

:rant:

[IADEMO2004]

1. No town with no natural ice in winter should have hockey

LA too

[theHandpuppet]

2. I have to agree with you

Having ice hockey in Tampa Bay and Phoenix is like having pro Beach Volleyball in Fargo and Caribou.

[glarius]

3. Right!....cities like Minneapolis Min, Milwaukee or Green Bay Wisc.

Cleveland or Toledo Ohio, for instance...I also have always wondered why the NHL didn't concentrate on getting into cities in the northern States, where they actually play and like hockey!

[akarnitz]

5. Uhm, Minneapolis has a team already

called The Wild(worst name in sports!).

Some of the cities wouldn't get franchises because existing franchisees view those cities as THEIR markets(Milwaukee is owned by
the Blackhawks, Toledo/Red Wings, Cleveland/BlueJackets).

Green Bay is just too freakin' small(my Packers are the anamoly in all of major sports).

Portland and Seattle would be great, though, and both have history with the league. Seattle played for the Cup in 1919, but the series was halted because of the influenza epidemic. Portland had the Rosebuds around the same time. One of the Patricks(Lester?) coached.

I'd like to see the Atlanta franchise moved to Kenora, Ontario, so the Thistles could have another shot at Lord Stanley's Cup.:silly:

[getmeouttahere]

9. I think it's all cyclical....

with this new economic model, I think eventually you will see teams in Winnipeg, Quebec and Hartford again. These non-traditional markets will lose interest when their teams aren't winning enough and at least a few of the franchises will be moved again.

[HuckleB]

4. Indeed.

It makes no sense that there is no franchise in the northwest. Seattle and Portland are filled with hockey fans.

[getmeouttahere]

12. Agreed, but....

Portland and Seattle fans are accustomed to paying CHL ticket prices. I lived in Portland and grew up in So. Oregon and I have to wonder if enough people would pay NHL prices to watch hockey, after decades of paying tiny prices by comparison.

[HuckleB]

19. Minor League attendance has no correlation to major league attendance.

In any sport.

[getmeouttahere]

20. It's about price.....what's your point?

again, the question is, will all those Winterhawks season ticket holders, who have been paying paying $200 a year, be willing or able to pay $1,000 or more for the NHL? Will there be enough corporate interest to get them to purchase both Blazers AND hockey tickets?

[Ganja Ninja]

6. Tampa Bays attendance was close to the league average.

League average 16591
Tampa Bay 16545

And it’s better than a lot of so called hockey towns
Buffalo 13776
Pittsburgh 14749
Boston 15029
Chicago 14749
NY Islanders 14930

Furthermore this area and all of Florida has more transplants from other states then it has native Floridians. So the idea that people here don't know hockey is ignorant.

And this:
NHL single game attendance record holder - Tampa Bay Lightning
27,227 set Oct 9 1993

[getmeouttahere]

8. That's all super and all, but

Calgary had more people at it's Cup runner-up celebration than Tampa did at a Cup winning parade.

There's more to this idea of fan base than attendance. How about taking a look at TV ratings, for example. I can tell you that here in L.A., with TWO NHL teams, hockey telecasts often finish underneath NASCAR, out of area college basketball, golf and MLS soccer in the TV ratings. I would bet that is happening in the other non-traditional markets as well.

Besides, I think it's shameful that a team like Atlanta, after only a few seasons in the league, was already dropping like a rock in attendance. The honeymoon was over pretty quick out there, me thinks.

[Ganja Ninja]

10. And which major network is carrying the NHL this season?

Answer: None!

Lets face it hockey is screwed up and it's not just the south that's killing them.

[getmeouttahere]

11. Well, they'll come running back after this season!

because I predict that this will be the most exciting hockey season since the early 90's

or at least they will in strong hockey markets. In non-traditional markets, it will be the small hard-core audience, like always. Sure Tampa or Anaheim can sell out a playoff game, and they might have a decent-sized season ticket base, but the vast majority of people that attend games in these markets are not even hockey fans. They are just using company tickets, or are on the Stanley Cup winning band wagon. The sooner the NHL understands that, the better they will be at appealing to true hockey fans, no matter where they are. Because they are not going to attract a lot of new fans, at least not ones that are going to put hockey first, which are the ones that buy more tickets, and merchandise, and watch the games on TV.

[kick-ass-bob]

7. I'm sorry, Carolina averaged more in attendance than the Devils.

I'm against the tired old whining about where teams are.

Cary, NC (outside of Raleigh) has gone from 10K to 110K people in about 15 years. You think they are all southerners?

How long has Detroit been in the league to build up it's fan base? I dare say they were not so hot at 14 years into existence.

[getmeouttahere]

13. I wouldn't use Detroit as an example there...

they are original 6, and those teams go back to the early 1900's and packed the house night after night in the "old days."

The only decent comparison would be with teams that came along at the first expansion, like L.A., Pittsburgh, St. Louis, etc.

[akarnitz]

14. Wings date to the mid-1920's

and were a hot commodity right off the bat. Windsor's right across the river, and south Ontarians have always been a large part of the fan base.

Somewhere in this thread you mentioned the cyclical nature of NHL expansion and contraction. If the league ever goes under we might expect to see Danny Heatley in Houghton and Jerome Iginla in Marquette.(The first pro hockey was played in Michigans U.P. during the copper boom.)

[getmeouttahere]

15. Well, maybe pro hockey...

but the origins of the game of hockey go back to Nova Scotia and probably somewhere in Europe if you go even farther back. It is generally acknowledged that the game we know today originated in Windsor, Nova Scotia.

IF the NHL ever went under, I wouldn't be surprised to see teams in places like the U.P., as well as all those medium sized cities in Canada that pack to the rafters for junior hockey. I love junior hockey. I took a 2-week vacation and went to junior games all over Quebec and Ontario in 1998. Ah, the memories!

[akarnitz]

16. Honestly, the U.P. couldn't support

much outside of Marquette. Geez, they might not support juniors, what with all the support for LSSU, NMU and MTU, thy'd have a hard time drumming up many fans anywhere.

Thanks for the Windsor, Nova Scotia tidbit. Hockey origins and baseball origins have those similar controversies, no?

Did you get up to the Sault on your juniors tour? That'd be one helluva boring drive.

[getmeouttahere]

18. It is indeed a controversy...

some folks think Kingston, Ontario is the birthplace of hockey. I lean toward Nova Scotia myself.

We went as far north as Cochrane, Ontario, just to see Tim Horton's birthplace. On our way down to Sudbury we went through Timmins, home of Shania Twain and Steve Sullivan. On our way to Sudbury, we took a wrong turn and started heading towards the Sault, but realized our mistake within 5 miles because the signs said "Kenora, Sault St. Marie, Winnipeg" and that kinda tipped us off LOL. The trip started with a stop in Owen Sound, then North Bay, Cochrane, Sudbury, Parry Sound to see Bobby Orr's birthplace, Toronto for a Leafs preseason game, over to Kingston, then Montreal for the Habs & Rangers preseason game, then Shawinigan, Quebec Remparts, Chicoutimi, Fredericton, back down through Quebec to Drummondville, back into Ontario for Belleville and Peterborough, then the season opener for the Leafs against Detroit, and finally a St. Michael's Majors game at MLG. Whew! We still talk about that trip, and my cousin took 857 pictures with his digital camera.

[getmeouttahere]

17. Maybe the larger point with Tampa should be....

that they JUST WON THE STANLEY CUP! For Crissakes, if you've been there 14 years AND just won the Cup, you should already have a fan base!

Also, this talk about all the transplants in the south. Sure, these cities grew by leaps and bounds in the last 15-20 years, but you can't tell me that ALL of that growth is from the "north." Also, the Kings found out the hard way that just because you have a lot of transplants in your market, does not mean they will attend games. The joke in L.A. back in the early days of the Kings' franchise was that the Canadians that moved to L.A. were trying to get AWAY from hockey, because they could never get much of a fan base going. Even A.G. (After Gretzky) it's still pretty much a small hard-core group of fans that regularly attend games. Of course, that might be the case in every market now that ticket prices are so high the average person can't afford to attend very often. Then you're success at the gate will depend on how popular hockey is in your market overall. And so it goes that a place like Montreal or Detroit or Toronto probably needs more than 20k or 21k seats because large percentages of the population in these cities are hockey fans. I've been to several games in Montreal over the last several years and I can tell you that sometimes there would be literally large crowds of people trying to buy from scalpers because all 21,273 tickets were sold, and they would still be milling around outside during the game. So believe the hype...hockey is indeed King in Canada!