Juniors event hit by lack of spectators
With noses growing, they called it a success.
Organizers bragged that more than 200,000 total tickets had been sold for the world junior hockey championship, ignoring that a quarter-final between the U.S. and Russia had only 6,242 fans in a building that seats more than 19,000. They highlighted the record-setting crowd that braved the snow to watch an outdoor game that “was a little bit of magic,” but then blamed the same weather for driving away fans at the other indoor games.
They sort of admitted that attendance could have been better. But as IIHF president Rene Fasel reminded everyone, it also could have been a lot worse.
“Just speaking about spectators, I know that there were some concerns,” said Fasel. “I remember a world junior championship in Switzerland in 1989 — guess how many spectators we had in the total tournament? 36,000. So we are far away from that.”
If that’s where the bar has been set, then congratulations. Everyone take a bow.
In reality, this year’s tournament has been a disaster. It’s not hyperbole. And it’s not anything new anymore. Attendance was a major issue a year ago when the tournament was jointly held in Toronto and Montreal. The championship game between Canada and the United States was sold out, but only 10,215 fans showed up for Canada’s quarterfinal against the Czech Republic and 13,456 fans attended Canada’s semifinal against Sweden (there were 11,576 for the other semifinal featuring Russia and the U.S.). This year, it was even worse. The opening game between the United States and Denmark drew 7,207 spectators. Thursday’s semifinal, which featured the U.S. and Sweden and was arguably the most anticipated game of the tournament, was not even close to being half-full with complete sections empty. In other games, the crowds have been so small that you could literally count the number of fans in the building.
And yet, rather than admit that the world juniors have been a mess that needs repair, organizers focused on the lone positive (an outdoor game that set a tournament record with 44,592 fans) and instead blamed the cold weather and poor driving conditions for the lack of fans in the seats, as though this is the first winter in which Buffalonians have been forced to put on snow tires.
“I’ve got some friends who were coming here and they had to go back,” said world juniors chairman Luc Tardif. “I think that had a big impact.”
“Obviously ticket sales haven’t been as robust as we wanted them to be, but we don’t judge the success or failure of a tournament based on ticket sales,” said Michael Gilbert, senior vicepresident of the Buffalo Sabres. “The success of the tournament is going to be based on the event that we put on and the play on the ice.”
Well, if no one is watching, does it really matter how good the hockey is?
If anything, the lack of interest should send a message to organizers: stop charging NHL prices for a junior event. And stop holding the tournament in NHL cities.
“Junior hockey proved that you could go to big cities and have a really big crowd,” said Tardif. “I think the experience we got now with back to back in Toronto tells us that we have to think differently about the city that hosts those world juniors ... but I think if it’s well done, you can have the capacity to fill the rink.”
This is not a Buffalo problem. Seven years ago, the tournament was held here and it was largely a success with 17,761 fans showing up for Canada versus Sweden in the preliminary round and 18,690 for Canada versus U.S. in the semifinal.
Oversaturation is a concern. The tournament has been held jointly in Toronto in 2015 and 2017. That’s three of the last four years where organizers are asking the segment of fans to support a product that might have run its course. Next year’s tournament is being held in Vancouver and Victoria before moving to the Czech Republic in 2020 and then returning to Canada in 2021.
If there’s something to be learned, it’s that the tournament needs to move around more.
“I spoke to (Hockey Canada president) Tom Renney at the Spengler Cup and he said already 50 per cent of the tickets are sold,” Fasel said of next year’s tournament. “This is a signal that going back to the west and the interest of the people there is different than here ... in the future maybe we should be more careful, maybe go more west and in the east.
“Here’s the question: in Canada, where will we be going? Winnipeg or Saskatoon? They speak about Edmonton and Calgary. We will see. It’s a right question and the right answer. But still, having 200,000 spectators for a tournament like this is still a rather good success.”
If this is considered a success, organizers might not want to see what a failure looks like. Unless they learn from this, they soon will.
“You get experience only when you make mistakes,” said Fasel. “So this is one experience.”