Saturday, January 07, 2006
Someone A Little High On Himself
D.F. from Canucks Rant has a further post on the fans' treatment of Team USA at the recently-concluded 2006 World Junior Hockey Championships. In it, D.F. gives us his insights from a fan's perspective - he attended 19 of the 21 games - and away from some of the more political ones that have appeared in the last couple of days - the link is here.
Something he pointed out towards the end of this post caught my attention, and it involves every hockey bloggers' best friend, Eklund, who weighed in on the same subject on his blog:
A couple of things:
1. How is the "Canadian sport of hockey" dependent on US money? Surely hockey can exist even without Americans chipping in as much as a penny.
2. Yes, US money helps make the NHL the NHL, but I'm sure Canadian money does too. Based on fan response through the first half of the season, it may even be argued that Canadian money is more important.
After the lockout, Canadians have flocked back in droves to support their NHL teams. In fact, five of Canadian-based teams (Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa and Calgary) rank in the top seven in overall attendance; the sixth Canadian-based team, Edmonton, ranks 16th. As a group, all Canadian-based teams are averaging 18,272 fans per home game, good for 99% of their total capacity. By contrast, the 24 American-based teams are averaging 16,480 fans per home game, or 89% of capacity.
When you consider that a large portion of the NHL's revenue stream is gate-driven, then you can see why these numbers are significant.
And I don't think I even need to get into the difference betwen TV ratings on Canadian networks and the US' OLN.
In fact, I don't think it's too far-fetched to suggest that, at the end of the season, zero Canadian teams will dip into the NHL's revenue sharing program.
Please, Eklund, just go back to making up fantasy trades.
Something he pointed out towards the end of this post caught my attention, and it involves every hockey bloggers' best friend, Eklund, who weighed in on the same subject on his blog:
To me, an American Hockey fan, who loves and does all he can for a Canadian sport, it is very upsetting... I think America deserves better than this.... I am not going to go political, don`t worry.Now, we know that Eklund's credibility is shit - there's more on Eklund courtesy of Off-Wing Opinion here - but now he just comes across as a pompous ass.
I am simply going to say that the Canadian sport of hockey and the NHL is highly dependant on fans like me in the US. US money helps make the NHL the NHL. If we had two leagues like we do in football, the NFL and CFL, things would be very different. The best players still largely come from Canada.
A couple of things:
1. How is the "Canadian sport of hockey" dependent on US money? Surely hockey can exist even without Americans chipping in as much as a penny.
2. Yes, US money helps make the NHL the NHL, but I'm sure Canadian money does too. Based on fan response through the first half of the season, it may even be argued that Canadian money is more important.
After the lockout, Canadians have flocked back in droves to support their NHL teams. In fact, five of Canadian-based teams (Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa and Calgary) rank in the top seven in overall attendance; the sixth Canadian-based team, Edmonton, ranks 16th. As a group, all Canadian-based teams are averaging 18,272 fans per home game, good for 99% of their total capacity. By contrast, the 24 American-based teams are averaging 16,480 fans per home game, or 89% of capacity.
When you consider that a large portion of the NHL's revenue stream is gate-driven, then you can see why these numbers are significant.
And I don't think I even need to get into the difference betwen TV ratings on Canadian networks and the US' OLN.
In fact, I don't think it's too far-fetched to suggest that, at the end of the season, zero Canadian teams will dip into the NHL's revenue sharing program.
Please, Eklund, just go back to making up fantasy trades.
2 Comments:
24 of the 30 teams in the NHL are in the US, that’s 80 percent.
For the NHL to be successful, it is really dependent on US fans spending the money for their teams. That is not to say the 6 Canadian teams are not important. The Canadian money is important if Canada doesn’t want to loss any more teams to the US. Considering that hockey is “Canada’s game” those team should be the top six in attendance every year.
Yes, yes, hockey can exist without any US money being spent on it, but we are talking about the NHL. NHL hockey goes where the money is.
Which is why Hartford moved to Carolina, Minnesota moved to Dallas, Winnipeg moved to Phoenix and Quebec moved to Colorado.
There are a couple US teams that personally I would like to see moved to better hockey areas. There is no reason to have 2 teams in Florida.
Yes, yes, hockey can exist without any US money being spent on it, but we are talking about the NHL. NHL hockey goes where the money is.
But the event that he was referring to was the World Junior Hockey Championships. I fail to see how booing at this event has anything to do with the NHL and the amount of money that comes from the USA and to the NHL.
Also, hockey is not a traditional American sport, but you can't tell me that a league with six Canadian teams is as well off as one with six Canadian teams and 24 American ones.
Not necessarily. I think we can argue that a league with six Canadian teams and 16-20 American teams are just as well off, if not better.
I think more than anything, it was the arrogance of his post that I took offence to.
US money to the NHL certainly helps - I don't think I denied that in my post. I simply wanted to point out that Canadian money means something too and I don't think the NHL will not completely collapse without "fans like him". (And I got the impression that's where he was going with his statement.)
On a side note, I have to say that I love Dallas. I contemplated a move there a few years ago and was very impressed with the friendliness of the city. Well, that and Deep Ellum. :)
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