WORLD JUNIOR CROWDS UP IN B.C.

The 2019 IIHF World Junior Hockey Championship in Vancouver and Victoria averaged 10,146 fans per game, up from 7,040 last season in Buffalo and 8,596 two seasons ago in Toronto and Montreal.

That’s a little off the 2006 tournament in Vancouver, Kamloops and Kelowna, which averaged crowds of 10,488. That year Team Canada won it all. They went out in the quarter-finals this year, which could have made the difference in failing to surpass the attendance mark.

“The people of Vancouver appreciate that level of hockey,” said Giants owner Ron Toigo, who was one of the lead organizers of this year’s tournament, much like he was in 2006. “They usually do support best-on-best competition.

“It didn’t surprise me. So many people were so invested in the tournament, and I’m not talking only financially. From every other measurement besides Canada winning

— fan experience, player experience, the effort the volunteers put in — it was a success.

“Even after Canada went out, the volunteers kept coming, and a lot of them are in it because Canada is playing. A lot of them took time off work. It probably cost them money to be there volunteering. But they kept coming.”

Toigo laughed when asked if he plans to put another bid for Vancouver and other parts of the province to host again.

“I don’t know when. It better be sooner than 13 years, though,” he said.