Roger Lajoie operates Triumph Sports Communications, a leader in providing editorial, broadcast and public relations services.

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The Rog's Rant

Memorial Cup has gone to another level

VANCOUVER – I’m in Vancouver this week for the final six days of the 2007 Memorial Cup, certainly one of my favorite events to attend over the years.

This Memorial Cup marks the 14th I’ve been too, with the first in Kitchener back in 1984. In that time I’ve seen the event continue to grow year after year to the point where it is now – really a major national sporting event.

I have also been to several World Junior Hockey and talk about an event that has shown incredible growth! Since the first one of those I attended – in Hamilton in 1986 – the World Junior Hockey Championships have grown to the point where it’s the second most watched hockey event in Canada on an annual basis, behind only the Stanley Cup playoffs.

A little over a decade ago, the Memorial Cup was held in Peterborough. Also around that time, the World Junior Hockey Championships were held in Red Deer.

I can tell you this much about the future of the Memorial Cup and the World Junior Hockey Championships – they will never be held in places like Peterborough and Red Deer again.
The events have out-grown those two communities. I’m not saying that’s right or fair for markets those size, but it is just stating the facts.

This week’s Memorial Cup will draw average crowds of 13,000 for the round-robin games and should the host Vancouver Giants advance to the final, will likely sell-out the arena. And while smaller cities will still have a small chance of hosting future Cups, gone are the days this tournament will be played in a 4,000 seat facility like Peterborough.

The recent World Junior Hockey Championships in Vancouver did sell out, with more than 20,000 fans watching the gold medal game. Smaller cities in Canada now have no chance – ZERO – of hosting the world juniors, even though the tournament will be played in North America much more often in the coming years (because it’s the only place that cares about the event by the way).
Gone are the days this tournament will be played in a small venue like Red Deer. It’s too big.

And I suppose that is my point – the Memorial Cup and the World Junior Hockey Championships have out-grown the cities that made these events as big as they are today, because of the great job they did hosting them years ago.

That’s kind of sad, but it’s the truth. And can you blame either the Canadian Hockey League or the International Ice Hockey Federation for trying to get these events into bigger facilities and markets?
Why sell only 4,000 tickets for a Memorial Cup when you can sell 14,000? Why sell only 8,000 seats for a world junior final when you can sell 20,000?

In the future you will see Memorial Cups only in cities like Vancouver, Ottawa, Quebec City, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto and perhaps London. In the future you will only see the world juniors in NHL arenas, period.

Is that fair to all of the smaller centres that have supported junior hockey over the years? Probably not. But both the Mmorial Cup and the World Junior Hockey Championships need bigger venues that this year’s Memorial Cup clearly shows that.

Unless the CHL and Hockey Canada decide to make far less money from these events (and why would they do that?), then the days of small town centres like Peterborough and Red Deer getting these events are over.

It’s too bad really – but junior hockey is like any other sport when it comes right down to it. It’s a business – and any business wants to make as much as it can from its most valuable properties.
And that’s what the Memorial Cup and World Junior Hockey Championships really are – properties.

And very valuable ones indeed.

Comments on The Rant of April 28 on North American Sports coverage:

“I go into a bar and everybody is watching UFC. So how come so many of the networks aren’t showing it on their sportscasts?” -- Chris in Toronto

“Sports is far too saturated The Rog. There’s just too much of everything now, that’s the problem…but you are right, the demographics really are changing.” – Steve in Ajax.

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