Other WJC Host

[Boonk]

The attendance for this years tournament has been abysmal to say the least. So heres the question, with the proper procedures, marketing strategies and ticket prices, where would you have hosted this years WJC? Rule: US Host only.

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[Canada4Gold]

Albuquerque and El Paso

Tingley Coliseum(if it can still host ice hockey) with 11,571 seating in Albuquerque as the main arena, with El Paso County Coliseum and it's 6500 seating as the secondary arena.

Would be fun to see if they'd get more attendance than Buffalo

 

[Mr. Met]

St Paul and Minneapolis

 

[Xokkeu]

I’d like to try a Tampa/Miami tournament or something like that. I bet enough Canadians would love the beach holiday vacation to go.

 

[Barrie22]

Seatle. But not sure if they would have 2 big enough arena's or if there is another city big enough and close enough to host it.

But like buffalo it is close enough to vancouver that it would attract thr canadian fans.

 

[coolwood]

Seatle. But not sure if they would have 2 big enough arena's or if there is another city big enough and close enough to host it.

Everett

 

[kudla]

no USA please...

 

[haulinbass]

Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario (Essar Centre 4,928) and Sault Ste. Marie, MI (Taffy Abel Arena 4,000)

Don't seat a ton but very nice venues and the seats would be full every game. Atmosphere would be much more exciting in a packed smaller building.

 

[MessierII]

Have it in vegas

 

[Redder Winger]

Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario (Essar Centre 4,928) and Sault Ste. Marie, MI (Taffy Abel Arena 4,000)

Don't seat a ton but very nice venues and the seats would be full every game. Atmosphere would be much more exciting in a packed smaller building.

Love this idea.
I wonder if those communities lack the corporate wealth to host it though.

Detroit-Windsor wouldn't be bad either.

 

[JoeyBeans]

Seattle/Portland

 

[Urbanskog]

Anchorage.

 

[MoreMorrissey]

You could throw a dart at the map and it’d be better than this lol

 

[Past Considerations]

2018 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships - Wikipedia

On July 28, 2015, USA Hockey named the five initial finalists for hosting the event:[4]

• Buffalo, New York
• Pittsburgh
• St. Louis
• Chicago
• Tampa, Florida

All of those others except Tampa sound good.

 

[LeafalCrusader]

Milwaukee

 

[Baxterman]

I am not sure it would have worked for this year with the VGK wanting to capitalize on their first year and not lose a ton of dates over the holiday season but especially now that Vegas has a team I think it would be a great place to host the WJHC.

I think Buffalo was a poor choice because of how recent it had been in TO/Montreal so many Canadian fans already had a chance to go from the area if they wanted.

I also think that with Canada hosting every two years now relying on them to travel down might be a bad idea as there is plenty of opportunity for Canadian fans to go, give it to other markets that either have a great hockey culture of their own or haven't had it so it could draw from that aspect.

 

[Peiskos]

There should be a rule to avoid all NHL cities, this tournament was always best when it was in the smaller more intimate arenas of the small towns in Canada/USA. No reason the 2018 World Juniors couldn't have made a return to Grand Forks, North Dakota and Thief River Falls, Minnesota like it was for the 2005 tournament.

It will be a bit of a pleasant change to see some games played in Victoria, BC next year for the 2019 WJC.

 

[Xokkeu]

Anchorage.

LOL Anchorage can't even support it's minor league team

 

[bbfan419]

Grand Forks should host again, they did a great job in 2005 and that arena is awesome!

 

[86Habs]

I can't speak at length about the U.S. (maybe somewhere like Madison, Wisconsin, or Detroit/Ann Arbor would work?), but at least for Canada its imperative to get this tournament out of the bigger NHL cities and back into the mid-sized junior markets like Halifax/Moncton/SJ, Quebec City, London/Kitchener, Saskatoon, Kelowna, etc. As far as the GTA is concerned, why not move out a bit to Peterborough or Oshawa, both very strong junior markets? Attendance might be a little lower, but you'd have packed houses for a lot of the games and the tournament certainly wouldn't be the embarrassment that it was this year. TSN viewership wouldn't be impacted, and in fact it might actually increase if there appears to be a better atmosphere at the rinks.

The tournament needs to get back to its roots as a junior tournament. Its gotten a little too big for its britches in the past ~10 years or so (2009 seems to be when it really took off as a major event), and what this tournament was originally about has kind of gotten lost. My fondest memories of this tournament are games being held in packed houses in Saskatoon, Red Deer, Winnipeg and Halifax.

 

[Channelcat]

Buffalo wasn't a bad choice, as any other US market wouldve performed similiarly under the same conditions. That being said, I think Wisconsin might work (Madison, Milwaukee, Green Bay) Minnesota(Twin Cities) or many other smaller centers if your willing to use smaller facilities......which they should.

 

[TheBeastCoast]

Buffalo wasn't a bad choice, as any other US market wouldve performed similiarly under the same conditions. That being said, I think Wisconsin might work (Madison, Milwaukee, Green Bay) Minnesota(Twin Cities) or many other smaller centers if your willing to use smaller facilities......which they should.

Buffalo was a terrible choice using the context of how many times they have been to this market in the past 6-7 years. There is really no justifying it and even Fasel admitted it was a mistake yesterday to put this many tournaments in one area this many times. Just completely foolish.

 

[Channelcat]

Buffalo was a terrible choice using the context of how many times they have been to this market in the past 6-7 years. There is really no justifying it and even Fasel admitted it was a mistake yesterday to put this many tournaments in one area this many times. Just completely foolish.

I don't think it had anything to do with the frequency of being in that market. More to do with overpriced tickets, inflexible packages, Buffalo Bills mania and a few other things.

 

[JackSlater]

I've attended the tournament twice (all games in the big arena packages) and both times it was great. Packed arenas for the Canada games and big crowds for the games that featured other big countries. It's disappointing to see how the tournament is trending. if as the OP says I had to pick an American host, from my perspective I would put it somewhere away from the border. USA Hockey can try to generate some popularity for the tournament instead of leeching off Canadian support and draining the market in Canada. Any of the American finalists for this tournament (St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Tampa Bay) would be good. I suspect that the attendance would be worse than what we are seeing in Buffalo, but at least we would have an idea of what the American market really is. Tampa Bay would be the most interesting because of the Florida weather, and it would be interesting to see how many vacationing Canadians or snowbirds would attend. With the right marketing in Florida I suspect that there could be good crowds. If I had to pick though I would have liked to see something in Minnesota. USA had a ton of players from Minnesota and the state supports amateur hockey, so it seems reasonable to me.

As far as the ideal host, I agree that it should go to a junior hockey market. Quebec City would probably by the most interesting bet as it has never hosted as the main city, has a big arena and supports junior hockey. Halifax would be good again as well. If the tournament goes back to an NHL market then I would like to see Winnipeg host. Winnipeg and Halifax really raised the bar for hosting the tournament and made the scale of the tournament much larger. Hockey Canada may not like losing out on short term money by hosting the tournament in a place like Halifax that has a 10,000 seat arena, but in the long term it is by far the best strategy. Southern Ontario (counting Buffalo) has had the tournament four times in the last eight years. Too much saturation. I would suggest that no Canadian region should have the tournament more than once per 15 years. Atlantic Canada can host (Halifax and nearby New Brunswick cities). Quebec City and someplace like Drummondville can host. Saskatchewan can host. Hamilton would be a more fresh location if the organizers felt compelled to host the tournament in Southern Ontario again. Use these non-NHL markets to let the tournament breathe in the big cities. Also, no more splitting the tournament between big cities like Edmonton and Calgary.

 

[TheBeastCoast]

I don't think it had anything to do with the frequency of being in that market. More to do with overpriced tickets, inflexible packages, Buffalo Bills mania and a few other things.

I mean all of those things obviously played a factor as well but I really am not sure how you can say saturating the market didn't have a big effect. While everything you listed plays a factor I think fatigue with the tournament in the southern ontario market is clearly the most obvious thing that happened here. Like I said the IIHF is even admitting this happened and that they need to be more tactful to space tournaments out in certain regions.