Giants hope for World Junior bump
Owner Ron Toigo would like to see the tourney turn more fans on to the WHL brand — again
Helping host the 2006 world junior hockey tournament helped build the Vancouver Giants’ brand. They’re hoping it happens again.
Hockey Canada announced Thursday at Rogers Arena that Vancouver and Victoria would be home to the 2019 world juniors, with the Giants, Victoria Royals and B.C. Hockey leading the organizing of the tournament.
Pool games will be played at Rogers Arena in Vancouver and the Save-On-Foods Memorial Arena in Victoria. Giants owner Ron Toigo said that the Team Canada pool will be at Rogers, the home of the Vancouver Canucks. It’s expected the playoffs would also be at Rogers, like they were in 2006.
The 2006 tournament had pool games at Rogers and the Pacific Coliseum, as well as Kelowna’s Prospera Place and the Sandman Centre in Kamloops.
Giants season-ticket holders will have “exclusive early access,” to tickets for the world juniors, according to a news release issued by the WHL club Thursday.
Team brass admit that they gained significant fans thanks to their role in helping run the 2006 tournament, but they can’t say exactly how many.
Those world juniors were announced during the 2004-05 NHL lockout, and it was also at the beginning of the Giants’ run that led to the 2007 Memorial Cup win on home ice.
The team’s attendance numbers have dwindled the past few seasons, to the point that they moved out of the Pacific Coliseum over the summer in favour of the smaller — and cheaper — Langley Events Centre.
The WHL website lists the Giants’ paid per game attendance at 3,726. It was 8,760 in 2006-07.
Also at play with fan interest is the fact that the team has missed the playoffs three of the past four years and hasn’t won a playoff round since 2009-10.
“It helped build our season-ticket base,” Toigo said of 2006. “It helped put the Giants on the map. No question about it.
“It helped put junior hockey on the map in this market, which didn’t really know yet what major junior hockey was.”
Toigo admitted that he thought his group’s bid was going to lose out to a bid from Edmonton, where Oilers chief executive officer Bob Nicholson, the former president of Hockey Canada, was part of the opposing caucus.
“I thought we were second,” he said. “That was such a hurdle to get over — Bob Nicholson was Hockey Canada, he created Hockey Canada.
“Honestly, I felt as long as we got close we were in good shape to go for 2020-21.”
Toigo said that he even gave Nicholson a congratulatory phone call after hearing Monday from TSN 1040’s Mike Whittingham that Hockey Canada was having a news conference in Edmonton. That ended up being to announce that Edmonton would host the Ivan Hlinka Under-18 event beginning in 2018.
“I phoned Nich and he said, ‘What are you talking about?’” Toigo said, chuckling. “He phoned me this morning and said, ‘I just got let go by Edmonton. Thanks. You cost me my job.’”
The provincial government has offered up a $10-million guarantee for the tournament. Toigo contended that isn’t in jeopardy of being accessed, “because our projections are significantly higher than that.”
“I think the government support separated us from Edmonton,” Toigo said.
The 2006 world juniors is considered one of the most successful ever, with reports of a profit of “almost $10 million.” Total attendance was 325,138 over 31 games.