Saturday, January 10, 2004
Winnipeg's white elephant
Winnipeg has been in the news a lot lately because of their deputy mayor's inquiry about bringing the Penguins to Winnipeg. There has been a lot of noise on message boards by Winnipeg residents about bringing the NHL back to Winnipeg for two reasons, a new CBA and the new MTS Centre. The belief is that a new CBA will lower tickets or something to enable Winnipeg to get a team and the rink will provide a place for said team to play in.
There are problems with both of those reasons though.
A new CBA isn't going to lower ticket prices. If the owners do somehow manage to get a $30M hard cap (which I doubt they will and pray that they don't) it doesn't mean that Winnipeg make sense as an NHL market. NHL markets are based upon where owners think they can make the most money. It suddenly makes a whole bunch of other markets viable as well. If an NHL owner thought he could make more money in Winnipeg, he'd move his team regardless of the CBA.
The other problem is the MCT Centre. I don't know why the people involved with building it decided to make it the size they did. The building is smaller, with fewer suites, then any of the NHL rinks that have been built in the past decade. If they wanted an NHL franchise why didn't they build an NHL calibre rink? But if they wanted an AHL (or maybe a WHL franchise instead) rink, why did they build it that size?
It reminds me of the Ottawa Civic Centre. I wasn't alive when the Civic Centre was developed but looking back it was a stupid idea. It too was built too small to be a long term NHL building but it was too big for junior hockey for a long time. By having a building big enough to host most non-hockey events, it made building a new, NHL calibre rink for Ottawa a bad idea. It took the vision of Bruce Firestone and the financial acumen of Rod Bryden to finally get the Ottawa area an NHL arena.
I think you'll continue to hear lots of noise about NHL teams moving to Winnipeg. The NHL like the idea of using Winnipeg as the boogeyman for fans of franchises looking for public funds. Just like Major League Baseball used the dome in Tampa Bay for years to pressure cities to build new ballparks, the NHL wants to use Winnipeg to scare markets into supporting their team. "Support your hockey team or it will move to Winnipeg!", will be the rallying call in New Jersey, Long Island and Pittsburgh.
There are problems with both of those reasons though.
A new CBA isn't going to lower ticket prices. If the owners do somehow manage to get a $30M hard cap (which I doubt they will and pray that they don't) it doesn't mean that Winnipeg make sense as an NHL market. NHL markets are based upon where owners think they can make the most money. It suddenly makes a whole bunch of other markets viable as well. If an NHL owner thought he could make more money in Winnipeg, he'd move his team regardless of the CBA.
The other problem is the MCT Centre. I don't know why the people involved with building it decided to make it the size they did. The building is smaller, with fewer suites, then any of the NHL rinks that have been built in the past decade. If they wanted an NHL franchise why didn't they build an NHL calibre rink? But if they wanted an AHL (or maybe a WHL franchise instead) rink, why did they build it that size?
It reminds me of the Ottawa Civic Centre. I wasn't alive when the Civic Centre was developed but looking back it was a stupid idea. It too was built too small to be a long term NHL building but it was too big for junior hockey for a long time. By having a building big enough to host most non-hockey events, it made building a new, NHL calibre rink for Ottawa a bad idea. It took the vision of Bruce Firestone and the financial acumen of Rod Bryden to finally get the Ottawa area an NHL arena.
I think you'll continue to hear lots of noise about NHL teams moving to Winnipeg. The NHL like the idea of using Winnipeg as the boogeyman for fans of franchises looking for public funds. Just like Major League Baseball used the dome in Tampa Bay for years to pressure cities to build new ballparks, the NHL wants to use Winnipeg to scare markets into supporting their team. "Support your hockey team or it will move to Winnipeg!", will be the rallying call in New Jersey, Long Island and Pittsburgh.
