Can a Canadian professional hockey league thrive?

[sawchuk1971]

I found out Canada has a professional basketball league called the CEBL (Canadian Elite Basketball League).

It got me thinking why there is no attempt to create a professional hockey league in Canada.

I say this because I feel the NHL has abandoned its Canadian fan base for American dollars.

Look how the league is treating Quebec. It has an arena, a wealthy owner and a fanatic fanbase.

Unfortunately, its market size makes it unlikely a NHL team will thrive there.

I feel that a professional hockey league in Canada must be looked at.

I believe there is a market for professional hockey in Canada.

Here is my plan for a professional hockey league in Canada. First, the ticket prices will be affordable to fans and families.

Second, it will attract and recruit Canadian players from the junior ranks and university teams.

Third, it will have 10 teams. Here is a list:

Vancouver
Edmonton
Calgary
Saskatoon
Winnipeg
Toronto
Hamilton
Ottawa
Quebec
Halifax

Fourth, the championship trophy will be renamed the Canada Cup.

I just don't understand why there has no attempt to do this.

Click to read more...

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

What real room does a new league have to operate in a market saturated with NHL, AHL, CHL, ECHL, etc.

 

[Yukon Joe]

Well first of all I'm not so sure how well either the CEBL (basketball) or CPL (soccer) are exactly doing as Canadian-only leagues. Heck, even the CFL, with over a century of tradition, and no competition from a US-based league, is on hard times.

The thing is a lot, maybe the majority, of fans aren't "hockey" fans - they're fans of the Leafs, or the Habs, or Jets, or whomever. They're not going to run out and watch the "Canadian Pro Hockey League" or whatever.

Most of the markets you identified already have NHL teams. Those that don't all have very popular junior teams. The existing teams, by the way, all control the major arena in those cities anyways.


Do you know what might be interesting though? All-Canadian Single or Double A minor league baseball. I'm not a huge baseball guy, but of the cities I know best Edmonton and Winnipeg both have really nice minor league ball diamonds with teams that play in cross-border leagues.

I suspect the costs of having to fly for cross-country games would be prohibitive however. Minor league baseball is very much about riding the bus.

 

[Barclay Donaldson]

I found out Canada has a professional basketball league called the CEBL (Canadian Elite Basketball League).

It got me thinking why there is no attempt to create a professional hockey league in Canada.

I say this because I feel the NHL has abandoned its Canadian fan base for American dollars.

Look how the league is treating Quebec. It has an arena, a wealthy owner and a fanatic fanbase.

Unfortunately, its market size makes it unlikely a NHL team will thrive there.

I feel that a professional hockey league in Canada must be looked at.

I believe there is a market for professional hockey in Canada.

Here is my plan for a professional hockey league in Canada. First, the ticket prices will be affordable to fans and families.

Second, it will attract and recruit Canadian players from the junior ranks and university teams.

Third, it will have 10 teams. Here is a list:

Vancouver
Edmonton
Calgary
Saskatoon
Winnipeg
Toronto
Hamilton
Ottawa
Quebec
Halifax

Fourth, the championship trophy will be renamed the Canada Cup.

I just don't understand why there has no attempt to do this.

You don't understand why there has been no attempt to do this?

You need to understand none of the current 7 Canadian NHL teams would leave the NHL with significantly their higher revenue for one of less revenue. A Canadian only league would have significantly less revenue. Those 7 Canadian NHL would certainly block any attempt to butt in on their market by a rival league. That kills the league off before it even starts.

You need to understand this league isn't feasible even in the fictional world where they do leave the NHL. Halifax with their half a million people market population, Saskatoon with their quarter of a million metro population, they won't be able to compete. They are good junior markets. Nothing more.

It will not attract and recruit Canadian players. Canadian players go where the money is at. What is the last big name free agent to go to a Canadian team? Jon Tavares? The move for ages now has been to sign in teams which play in states with no income tax and keep more of their paycheck. Tampa's ability to sign Canadian players even during their bad years is because if you're in a Canadian market, you're losing 60% of your pay check. You think a team in Saskatoon, Halifax, and Québec would attract Canadian players. Winnipeg in their current status can't even attract Canadian players!

Affordable prices means fewer revenues for teams. A professional league that is affordable to see live isn't able to pay players much money. If players aren't paid much, they don't attract talented players. Even someone completely detached from reality has to recognize this.

The Canada Cup is trademarked by Hockey Canada who would never detach themselves from the NHL for another league.

I think you are well-intentioned, but anyone with half a brain cell and the capability to rationally process information above a second grade level can see this idea as completely idiotic. Hopefully my counterpoints to your individual points help you understand why this idea is so.

 

[rsteen]

It didn't really work for the WHA and they also included major USA cities.

 

[MeHateHe]

Canadian sports fans love sports, But only if it's the highest level possible, and preferably attached to a US-based league.

Toronto and Vancouver, especially, are mostly front-runner cities. Everyone loves to look down their nose at the CFL, for example. Of course the best athletes are in the NFL. But the CFL is a great product. CFL games are a ton of fun, both live and on TV. But in Toronto and Vancouver, the clubs have a difficulty getting 20,000 people in the building, because they think they're too good for a Canadian-only league.

I would guess that a Canadian pro hockey league would have the same problem. It's not the highest level, so most cities would turn up their nose.

 

[LPHabsFan]

No

 

[patnyrnyg]

So, the threads about a Canadian Pro League, are they weekly, monthly bi-weekly?

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

If you have never heard of the CEBL maybe that answers your question?

Canada is BIG. LNAH has been/was pretty popular as a little pro league in Quebec, where teams could still drive/bus to games. Lots of Quebec-based ex-pro/ex-NHL guys played there (for fun/peanuts). But to do it on a Canada-wide basis? Um, well no. I mean, there are always senior leagues and stuff. But you can't make a go of it, you can't afford the travel costs and salaries and so on. The appropriate levels and leagues already exist in communities that are big enough to support their teams, either as junior teams, farm teams, etc. It's not really an investment I would recommend pursuing? Times are tough?

 

[tucker3434]

It’d do okay in the same way the XFL/USFL do fine in the states. Nobody is giving up their original teams to follow a new league beyond something to do when their favorite team isn’t on.

Current Canadian NHL teams resent going anywhere as their owners aren’t looking to devalue their investment for no real reason.

 

[WarriorofTime]

The issue that a theoretical Canadian Minor Pro Sports runs into is that Canada is very spread out geographically and across timezones. Junior Hockey can get away with having 3 different major junior leagues with the country divided regionally. Anything else is going to require a lot of travel to hop around the major cities, which creates very expensive travel requirements, which is tough to do with low gate revenue. Once a week nature of Pro Football makes the CFL possible (and of course, no competition anywhere country, including Toronto, for the NFL).

In a world where the 7 largest Canadian cities didn't have NHL Franchises such a world could perhaps exist, but with NHL franchises in place and thriving junior locales in the "next of" list, independent circuit minor hockey is not likely to have much of a market to be sustainable.

 

[Melrose Munch]

The CFL exists so yes.

 

[Bixby Snyder]

It would not last for long going up against the NHL. Just look at the history of minor pro hockey in Canada.

The CFL exists so yes.

But does it thrive?

 

[BattleBorn]

Once you realize you’re not going to have the best players in whatever the league becomes if it were to exist, it almost seems pointless in comparison to the already existing CHL.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

It got me thinking why there is no attempt to create a professional hockey league in Canada.

You seem to have these “new” thoughts periodically:

You offered the exact same thoughts, and you received a lot of helpful responses.

What exactly did you find so unsatisfactory about that discussion that you decided to start it anew?

 

[Nordskull]

A) You have the fact teams would be spread in a east west line instead of north south. Time zones would make lots of week games too late or too early etc.

B) IMHO theres not enough talent for a 32 NHL league. Who would be the key players of the Canada league?

C) Which TV sports network would turn its back to the NHL?

D) Lets face it, NHL has a monopoly on pro hockey in america.

 

[GKJ]

The inability to get a ‘thriving’ women’s league off the ground tells you all that’s needed to be said about a how a minor pro substandard men’s Canadian league would do.

 

[Chet Manley]

There would need to be an entertaining twist on the rules to complete. I have no real clue what that would be. Something weird like max height of 182 cm to give smaller, highly skilled players a pro league to excel in Canada.(I'd watch that)

 

[Lady Stanley]

Canadian sports fans love sports, But only if it's the highest level possible, and preferably attached to a US-based league.

This is mostly a Toronto thing. And even then a lot of it is a visability issue, the CFL is invisible in Toronto, I ran into people going to an argos game once in my life. Otherwise never saw a sign the team existed.

That narrative of the "best in the world" is pretty easy to prove entirely false in a moments thought.

NCAA is way below NFL talent levels, the CFL is a serious step up.

The fact the CFL exists at all when football is 4th behind basketball/soccer/hockey tells you a lot of how hungry Canadians are for a league.

MLS is a minor league, the top MLS team would be at best on continual threat of being relegated out of the EPL. This argument that people wouldn't watch a 2nd league is just unfounded.

Add to that we see all over Europe that people are passionate about their local club even when they can't compete against the "top talent" in Europe in soccer.

Toronto and Vancouver, especially, are mostly front-runner cities. Everyone loves to look down their nose at the CFL, for example

A massive part of that especially in Vancouver is down to problems with branding.

The CFL got trapped in a mindset thinking it was in direct competition with the NFL. This was actually true 40-50 years ago. Newer owners I think are starting to figure out that it is a horrible branding. To me the CFL is clearly division 1 football. It's Canada's first division. It's far more comparable to division 1 football in almost every way. I think if the CFL was smart they'd be playing up that angle, where real football fans love both the NFL and their division 1 teams in the area regardless of whether or not it's NCAA or Canada's first division.

It makes a lot more sense if you compare our CHL with NCAA hockey.

. Of course the best athletes are in the NFL. But the CFL is a great product. CFL games are a ton of fun, both live and on TV.

As someone who was agnostic on which league to follow, in fact I was tipping towards the NFL, I gotta say personally CFL is way way better. For me it's an offseason sport, so that gives the CFL a huge boost. But the 3 downs/rules etc/ scrambling quarter backs etc makes it far far more entertaining. Also I prefer 9 teams to 32. I don't get the appeal of massive leagues.

But in Toronto and Vancouver, the clubs have a difficulty getting 20,000 people in the building, because they think they're too good for a Canadian-only league.

Toronto absolutely, but I think in Vancouver and Montreal's case it's largely a branding issue. I think in Montreal the association with Anglo-American culture made it a turn off. And I think in Vancouver the narrative of it being a rural white guy things is getting smashed by a new diverse fresh faced owner.

CFL has been in a tail spin for 3 decades. Now all of a sudden there's true ownership stability the most stable the league has ever been.

I would guess that a Canadian pro hockey league would have the same problem. It's not the highest level, so most cities would turn up their nose.

You don't need everyone, you need a proportion of the population.

You'll get way higher market penetration in smaller markets as those are the people most starved for local content.

Keeping in mind London which is the shinning example of what could be, it's pretty clear cut that people are both hardcore fans of both the Knights and the Leafs. I don't think anyone here feels any conflict over that. I'd also mention a big part of this is because alumni like Tavares/Marner/Kadri have ended up playing for the leafs.

The logical thing to do would be to cooperate with the NHL, or at the very least give a golden offer of being a farm team for players better than AHL calibre needing midlevel competition.

I would think it's very reasonable to assume a successful C league would get about triple the TV revenue of CFL. That'd be about 120 million per year, roughly 10 mill per teams.

I don't think the question is could it work.

It's a question of whether or not the middle tier markets like London starved for division 1 league, would give up on the OHL. You need this to happen across multiple arenas.

Saskatoon-QC-London-Kitchener-Hamilton-Victoria to me are the 6 markets you need to have a full ownership commitment. You need 6 owners who are on a 30 year time frame, who are specifically looking for something greater than a minor league franchise.

If you don't get all 6 markets, I think it's a waste of time.

That being said, it might already be too late.

The CPL, CEBL, and CFL are all leagues targeting those exact same mid tier markets.

 

[Golden_Jet]

OP, couldn’t you have just bumped the other thread on this a month ago.

 

[End on a Hinote]

No, give it a rest.

The NHL started as a Canadian league, we created the league and we should embrace it, even though it has long since become overwhelmingly American and Americanized since. Yeah our teams will likely not win a SC any time soon (if ever) but who gives a shit! Let's not abandon what we started.

 

[Lady Stanley]

You seem to have these “new” thoughts periodically:

View attachment 715942

You offered the exact same thoughts, and you received a lot of helpful responses.

What exactly did you find so unsatisfactory about that discussion that you decided to start it anew?

A) I believe that was on the main board with a loaded OP post that caused that thread to get derailed.

B) If you are a creative, open minded person, 23 days ago was eons ago. While some might think of this being the same question asked 10-15 years ago, for a lot of us we're evolving and changing week to week.

C) We have a very squat timeframe, thanks to so much change in the world. Covid changed a lot of things and the dynamics of streaming services globbaly has changed.

D) It seems most of the Canadian teams are nearing a rebuild, which possibly means it's a good time to sweep in. This wasn't obvious 12 months ago.

E) The Nordiques appear to be officially over, if it doesn't happen this summer it'll likely never happen. In contrast the Ramparts suggest there's a market starving for meaningful hockey.

F) Ownership landscape is very different, we now know there's multiple ownership groups rejected from the Sens ownership group. In Quebec the owner of the videotron arena just bought the CFL team and there season only starts this weekend. It seems clear that he's gonna push the CFL across Quebec via TVAS when he can.

G) Streaming is a total game changer, prime video is already dipping their toes into sports treaming. Disney is now involved with hockey though ESPN. And we can all be sure that's a thing that truly is up in the air.

H) There's a generalized dissatisfaction with the north American sports model. In quebec it's because their new nationalism doesn't align with it. For a lot of people it's because their teams are on the rebuild and they either percieve that the league is structured against their best interest(regardless of whether or not it is true it doesn't matter, it's how some people feel). Most importantly in a more global worldly perspective, people are open to other ways of structuring their sports and the American way isn't the best from an objective perspective.

I) Canadian immigration and property values are influx. All of a sudden "minor cities" like London and Halifax are seeing a truly massive influx of cash coming via real estate and truly rapid population growth.

J) were at the start of a brand new cycle in Canadian sports. The CPL is gonna get a massive boost from the world cup coming here in just 3 years. It'll be free marketing for the league. The CEBL is starting up exactly when intense basketball fandom is kicking in. The CFL for the first time in a very very long time has fresh ownership who have real insight in how to market to a younger generation of people, something previous owners were incapable of doing. We have no idea how this plays out but there's reason to think the idea of a C-League might be getting real traction.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

You don't need to convince me, thanks!

 

[Lady Stanley]

No, give it a rest.

The NHL started as a Canadian league, we created the league and we should embrace it, even though it has long since become overwhelmingly American and Americanized since.

Yeah our teams will likely not win a SC any time soon (if ever) but who gives a shit! Let's not abandon

Can't have it both ways, you have to ask yourself what brand of nationalism are we talking about.

I don't care about history, or where a player is from.

My singular concern is whether or not the market I live in is offering the product I want.

On a national level, which means a whole lot when you're a perpetual transplant, I feel like I'm screwed in every other market I could end up living.

I know live in London, so a league not located here isn't on my radar. At the same time it seems obvious that the market is in need of something bigger than the OHL. You have the same thing happening in Halifax etc. We live in a new era internet technology has changed the landscape.

The NHL doesn't work for me in London. The city is rapidly growing it's fast outgrowing minor league sports. But the big 5 won't serve the market. Very possible the GDP of London will outstrip Winnipeg's in the near future.

The idea that it's either minor or major is an American idea that doesn't even hold up with college sports, which effectively act as the middle team between minor league and major league sports. It's completely different in Canada. We lack a middle tier, something that virtually every other major country in the world has including the US. That cannot be understated.

In the US the only real exception is baseball and that sport has endless problems.

The biggest problem with existing minor league sports is that they usually overlap with American cities. It really hurts a branding, competition works between Canadian cities because a lot of the time they amplify existing rivalries. It's also easier to convince someone it's a top national league, than a feeder league.

CPL/CEBL are truly gonna be tests for what can happen.

The fact the CPL exploded into the exact markets most people would target tells us a lot.

 

[BMN]

I'll re-frame the problem a bit:

In short, you have three types of sports content as I see it (I'm oversimplifying but this is a way to frame the situation).

1--- The major leagues
2--- The minor leagues
3--- The developmental leagues

On the surface, it would appear everyone wants the major leagues if they can have it. But if you're not getting it, the question becomes "how do I create the *environment* of a major league without being the major league (yet)?" And you can do that one of two ways:

a--- Start #2 and say "We're a minor league now but we're throwing out big money to get big fish to turn us into the majors...come along for the ride!"
b--- Look at #3. It's the stars of tomorrow. How can we sell that aspect?

Neither has much of a track record of success in terms of creating some sort of "major league environment" *except* for NCAA football and basketball (helps when you have vastly under-renumerated labour but that's a separate rant). They have an "unfair" history advantage that has allowed that success but I'll talk about the after-effect from that that maybe scratches the itch that @sawchuk1971 is getting at.

The Remparts won the Memorial Cup after winning the league title in front of a packed Videotron. That's a major event with a major league environment even if it's not the major leagues itself, not unlike UGA winning the national football title in the same "major league environment" that a team would win a Super Bowl or UConn winning the basketball title in the same "major league environment" that team wins the NBA title. So what's the problem?

The problem is: This is basically a 2-4 week phenomenon in Canada. I already mentioned it in another thread but there's basically a few weeks Canada "decides" (or has it decided for them, see below) that it cares about major junior hockey--- The World Juniors and the Major Junior league finals + Memorial Cup. That isn't how the NCAA works at the prestige programs--- UGA has a spring practice and gets over 45,000 people.

If you want an all-Canadian team pro league, knock yourself out. I could see some organizational advantages in terms of avoiding cross-border travel and all contracts operating under the same tax onuses, etc. But I honestly think it'd be dead in two years.

What would scratch the itch for Canadians who feel underserved by the current environment would be for major junior to just......be a bigger deal than it is. And I don't know if the solution to that is for the media to treat it like a bigger deal? (Bolded for emphasis but with a question mark because I genuinely don't know). If major junior highlights had to compete with NHL highlights at the top of Sportscentre and Sportsnet Central six months a year, would it suddenly feel more important? I dunno. Would it make Quebecers view their current Memorial Cup victory as being the big fish in the top developmental league in the world or would they still feel shunted by not being a NHL city?

Because to bring it back around to something else I said in another thread: If forced at gunpoint to choose between the NFL or their state's top NCAAF programs, I can think of many markets' citizenry that would choose the latter. And the NFL knows it. The NHL, I feel, knows full well that Canadians can bitch about the number of Canadian teams all they want but they'll come crawling back to watch more and only view junior hockey as a consolation product 48 weeks of the year...

EDIT: Also, I'm 46 years old and have been watching the CFL since I was nine so I can vouch for @LadyStanley's point: Pretty much every three years since I started watching, the CFL "is gonna die out any day now."