How badly does Prince George want to play host to the Memorial Cup?
If you base it on the 5,918 people who packed into CN Centre Thursday night to see the conclusion of the Subway Super Series, the answer is quite apparent.
But before the Western Hockey League will even think about picking the Prince George Cougars as the host team for major junior hockey's championship, that little spike on the attendance chart will have to become more of a plateau.
WHL commissioner Ron Robison says his league will not consider Prince George as a potential Memorial Cup site until the fans come back in droves for the Cougars' regular season games. Having assembled a competitive team for the first time in three seasons, there's a growing sense the Cougars have turned a corner and the crowds will eventually return to what they were in the glory days. Robison is hopeful the sold-out barn Thursday will be the start of that trend in Cougarville.
"First and foremost, we want to use this series to hopefully rejuvenate this market," Robison said. "Attendance hasn't been at levels that are acceptable to the Cougars or the league and we hope it's going to generate some fan interest in attending more Cougar games. That's really a critical ingredient for us to consider bids for Memorial Cup.
"When you consider the potential of this market and what it accomplished in the past, the facilities, and certainly the enthusiasm in the community, those are all good ingredients, but we have to see the Cougars' attendance improve in order to support that bid. Our expectation would be 80 per cent capacity, not 30 per cent capacity here. Since their last playoff run, there hasn't been the type of response we're looking for."
It will be the WHL's turn to host the Memorial Cup in 2013. Robison said league attendance averages between 4,000 and 5,000 and the Cougars would have to be drawing at least the lower end of that scale for a bid to be considered.
For years, Prince George won the annual WHL Best of the West poll for having the most rabid fans in the Western Conference, and that started not long after Rick Brodsky brought the franchise from Victoria in 1994. A lengthy playoff run in 1997 made the Cougars the hottest ticket in town and regular season attendance averaged well into the 5,000 range. That lasted several years until it started to dip in 2002-03, the start of three consecutive last-place finishes, which coincided with a downturn in the city's forestry-based economy. There haven't been full houses since the Cats got to the third round of playoffs in 2007.
Other than the season-opener, which drew a crowd of 5,095, propped by some ticket giveaways, attendance at CN Centre has hovered around the 2,000 mark, for an average of 2,404 through eight home games, down 2.6 per cent from last year's 2,468. Only Swift Current (2,120) and Prince Albert (2,185) are averaging less. But with the Cougars pushing for first place in the B.C. Division, crowds have been building the last few games.
"The Cougars have made real progress with the hockey team and the B.C. Division is as competitive as we've ever seen it," Robison said. "We think it will be real exciting for the fans in the second half of the season and I think you'll see this game (Thursday) as a bit of springboard in this market."
Prince George is not alone in its attendance concerns. Crowds in Edmonton have declined 25 per cent from last season, from 4,758 to 3,552, while Kootenay has dropped another 5.6 per cent to 2,453. Attendance is up 26 per cent in Seattle to 6,192, and up 20 per cent in Portland to 4,052.
The Super Series against the Russians replaced the WHL all-star game in 2003 but it's taken the Russians that long to build a team capable of winning the series. Heading into Thursday's game, Russia had won just two of 13 games against Team WHL, including Wednesday's 7-6 shootout victory in Kamloops.
"It's the first time in the eight-year history of the series we have a highly-competitive Russian national team and it's a team that allows our players to have to compete at the highest level and that's what we wanted to accomplish from this series," said Robison.
"We've had great response with two sold-out buildings in Prince George and Kamloops. This is a critical part of the evaluations for Team Canada for the world junior championship, so there's something to play for and that's important when you bring your most talented players together."
