AJHL teams struggling to woo Calgary hockey fans
Dwindling attendance numbers disconcerting for Canucks, Mustangs
The Alberta Junior Hockey League is one of the top junior leagues in Canada, but the league is having a tough time attracting fans in the province’s largest city.
Calgary has two teams in the AJHL, the Canucks and the Mustangs.
The Canucks have been playing since 1971, and the Mustangs franchise joined the league in 1990. The Canucks and the Mustangs have been successful throughout the years. They have both won championships and have been consistent playoff teams.
But lately, any success for both Junior A teams has been overshadowed by the lack of attendance at their games.
For the 2016-17 season, the Canucks and the Mustangs were dead last in league attendance, averaging 221 and 205 people per game respectively. The Canucks’ Max Bell Centre can hold up to 3,000 people, while the Mustangs’ Father David Bauer Arena holds 1,750.
It’s a problem that stems from having plenty of competition for hockey fans within the city.
The Canucks’ governor, Sandy Edmonstone, said there are many reasons for those fans to turn elsewhere, due to the large amount of high-level teams in the city. Edmonstone says the teams the Canucks are in competition with include “the Calgary Flames, the Calgary Hitmen, University of Calgary Dinos, Mount Royal Cougars, SAIT and we also have the Calgary Mustangs.”
The Mustangs often experience the same issues, says the chairman of the team’s board of directors, Mike Martin.
“Hockey is entertainment,” said Martin. “You’re competing with the Flames, ultimately, the Hitmen, and of course you have the Canucks and the Mustangs. There’s a lot of organizations. We’re not the only show in town.”
David Finch, a marketing professor at Mount Royal University who has worked with the AJHL in the past, says the historically strong AJHL franchises in smaller communities, such as the Grand Prairie Storm and the Fort McMurray Oil Barons, face less competition.
“In a place like Grand Prairie, the Storm are the team,” Finch says. “The players are rock stars, they’re in the schools, they are a part of the community. What that does is cascade, and that becomes a big part of the social fabric of the community.”
Finch added that for teams in the AJHL “you’re competing less for money, and more for time,” which is challenging for minor league teams in a large market like Calgary.
Take Okotoks, for instance, where the Pason Centennial Arena will be jammed Friday night for Game 5 of the AJHL championship series (7 p.m.). The host Okotoks are in a must-win situation being down 3-1 in the series against the Spruce Grove Saints.
Edmonstone said despite being in a large city with lots of amenities, Calgary has become one of the least attractive places for AJHL players because of the dwindling attendance numbers for both teams, hurting both teams’ efforts to put forth a good product on the ice.
“We should naturally be a draw for players who want to come to the big city,” Edmonton said. “It works in the opposite, because we don’t attract a lot of fans. Good players, both from Calgary and not from Calgary, they actually want to go to a small town and play where they get a lot of fans and are well regarded in the community.”
Mustangs forward Yuri Chernichko knows all too well that people are not attending games in Calgary.
“We joke about it, but it’s kind of disheartening to see, when you go out there and it’s all just empty stands,” Chernichko said.
“Then you go to somewhere like Brooks or Fort Mac, and you see packed barns and the crowd going wild.”
When asked about how the low attendance affects his team, Canucks assistant coach Jason Hanna said: “It’s definitely discouraging when you go to some rinks and you’re playing in front of 1,000 people and then at home you’re playing in front of 200 people.”
Edmonstone said: “Really, what we need is awareness because that will bring people in.”
Edmonstone said the Canucks have looked at many options to improve the team’s situation in Calgary but have found little luck.
“We’ve tried to work with the city and haven’t had much success in them trying to help manage our costs,” Edmonstone said.
“The city has, interestingly enough, had a different policy for different groups that rent ice, so our ice rental costs are our biggest cost.”
Although it was his final season with the Mustangs, Chernichko hopes both the Mustangs and Canucks will be able to fix their attendance woes.
“I think if people would come out and watch, the local talent here is something else. We’ve got a lot of good young players who come out and play junior A. It’s pretty cheap to come watch a game, and it’s great hockey.”
This story is provided to Postmedia through ongoing collaboration with the Mount Royal University journalism program and the program’s student paper, the Calgary Journal.