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Poor attendance

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It's the pricing, plain and simple. I'd be at so many of these games if they were reasonably priced. As it stands, I'll probably only go to two. There's absolutely no reason some of these matchups should cost so much. Couple that with terrible weather, and this is the result.

Also, I'm not sure I totally buy the "Sabres are bad so no one cares" excuse. I'm a huge Sabres fan but also a huge hockey fan. Since the Sabres suck, I actually care more about this tournament since it's a great chance to see some quality hockey. But the prices make it an easy pass.
 
donghabs98 said:
Another thing is fatigue. I think Canadians are getting tired of the TSN hype train in part because of Team Canada's recent performances and because the World Juniors are that new anymore. Back in 2003-2010 the World Juniors were relativity new to most Canadians because it wasn't that well known before. The novelty of watching hockey during the holidays and winning was new and appealing. It's not that new of a concept anymore and mix in with Canada's recent performances the tournament isn't as appealing.
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I think that + ticket prices are the main reasons overall.

When these threads come around almost every year, people act like the WJC was always popular and now it's suddenly not. But like you said, the WJC was around for a while before its popularity and hype really skyrocketed (2003-2010). It was probably simply unreasonable to expect that level of enthusiasm to continue forever. It's not that it's "unpopular" now, it just went through a market correction.

The tickets are still priced like those "glory years" and haven't come down accordingly to meet the lowered level of enthusiasm. Ergo, empty arenas.
 
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Sabres beat writer Mike Harrington saw this coming and now it could get worse.

Team USA is playing at 4 PM on Sunday but suddenly the NFL has moved the Bills game to 4:25 PM which will kill walk up sales.

Mike Harrington: Empty seats, replay review make for ugly opening at World Juniors

There might have been 2,000 folks in the KeyBank Center stands to see the Czech Republic's upset of Russia in the opener. Canada got better as its 4-2 victory over Finland went along in a game played in front of maybe 8,000 fans. Team USA battered Denmark in front of a pathetic house of maybe 5,000 – and officials closed the 300 level and offered fans comp seats down below. Which had to make folks who paid for that level super-duper happy about the extra money they shelled out.

Organizers have to be choking on their hot chocolate after the intimate gatherings that entered the building. The Canada-Russia game played here on Dec. 26, 2010, drew a sellout crowd of 18,690. The US-Finland game that day drew 14,093. So what the heck happened Tuesday?

I hate to be I-told-you-so guy. But I told you so.
 
Scrantonicity 2 said:
Vancouver should do well next year, the West is always good for this tournament. Calgary/Edmonton did exceptionally well in 2012. Christ, in Calgary I remember going to a game between two bottom feeders in Switzerland and Latvia and sitting in the nosebleeds. 14,000 people were in attendance for that one.
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I'm not so sure. The Canadian games will obviously sell, but the success of the tourney will depend on how many people show up to the non-Canada games. It's not like people flood in from Washington state to watch their beloved US WJC team.

In 2006 in Vancouver they used the Pacific Coliseum for the preliminary round games before going to GM Place (now Rogers Arena) for the quarter-finals. The crowds were over 12,000 for the US prelim games. I'm pretty sure people were buying tickets and showing up just to cheer against them. Think about this, a Norway-Switzerland game drew a crowd of 11,976. I just don't see any way that would be the case again next year. The prices will be way higher than in 2006 and I think the tournament has lost a lot of luster.
 
Riggins said:
I'm not so sure. The Canadian games will obviously sell, but the success of the tourney will depend on how many people show up to the non-Canada games. It's not like people flood in from Washington state to watch their beloved US WJC team.

In 2006 in Vancouver they used the Pacific Coliseum for the preliminary round games before going to GM Place (now Rogers Arena) for the quarter-finals. The crowds were over 12,000 for the US prelim games. I'm pretty sure people were buying tickets and showing up just to cheer against them. Think about this, a Norway-Switzerland game drew a crowd of 11,976. I just don't see any way that would be the case again next year. The prices will be way higher than in 2006 and I think the tournament has lost a lot of luster.
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This could be very true. I feel like my optimism lies in how well Calgary/Edmonton did in 2012, which doesn't seem that far removed from 2018. Then again, Buffalo was 2011 and we know how that's going this time around. Maybe organizers and the IIHF will recognize that current ticket prices aren't realistic and we'll see a bit of a resurgence in attendance if and when they readjust in the future.
 
Fenway said:
Sabres beat writer Mike Harrington saw this coming and now it could get worse.
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I actually really hope Canada and USA play in a mostly empty football stadium on Friday. Would be a serious kick in the teeth for the people in charge. Who wants to sit outside in misery to watch this thing? It cheapens the on ice product and there's snow in the forecast.
 
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hototogisu said:
I think that + ticket prices are the main reasons overall.

When these threads come around almost every year, people act like the WJC was always popular and now it's suddenly not. But like you said, the WJC was around for a while before its popularity and hype really skyrocketed (2003-2010). It was probably simply unreasonable to expect that level of enthusiasm to continue forever. It's not that it's "unpopular" now, it just went through a market correction.

The tickets are still priced like those "glory years" and haven't come down accordingly to meet the lowered level of enthusiasm. Ergo, empty arenas.
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What was it about 2003 WJC that caused it to skyrocket? I remember watching that year for the first time, the year Fleury shot the puck on his defenceman's ass against the US. That is definitely when I remember the hype beginning.

These days, the hype is waaaaay way down. Last time I remember a lot of hype was the year the US had JVR, Bjugstad etc and Canada had Benn And Ellis. I think Russia had Kuznetsov and Tarasenko...I should remember, I had tickets for the whole thing but I think my brain blocks it out due to how the final ended.
 
Riggins said:
I actually really hope Canada and USA play in a mostly empty football stadium on Friday. Would be a serious kick in the teeth for the people in charge. Who wants to sit outside in misery to watch this thing? It cheapens the on ice product and there's snow in the forecast.
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40.000/47.000 tickets sold so far.
 
I'd rather the Rangers/Buffalo play there game up in Buffalo and let USA vs Canada play at the outdoor rink on New Yorks Day. Now that I would go to.
 
ek93 said:
It's the pricing, plain and simple. I'd be at so many of these games if they were reasonably priced. As it stands, I'll probably only go to two. There's absolutely no reason some of these matchups should cost so much. Couple that with terrible weather, and this is the result.

Also, I'm not sure I totally buy the "Sabres are bad so no one cares" excuse. I'm a huge Sabres fan but also a huge hockey fan. Since the Sabres suck, I actually care more about this tournament since it's a great chance to see some quality hockey. But the prices make it an easy pass.
Click to expand...

I've gone to CHL Top Prospect games since '96; Memorial Cup games in London, Kitchener, Guelph, Mississauga; Frozen Four's in Buffalo and Tampa; USAH Top Prospect games and NHL drafts in Buffalo, Pittsburgh, and Toronto and there is almost no participation from other people from Buffalo. It's a labor to get people to talk about the Sabres, let alone where future NHLers come from. If they are playing well, hockey is in people's minds. But even the few rabid folks I know are feeling this is too much money to spend.
 
Im very interested to see how the tournament does next year in Vancouver. I assume there will be many travelling in from Alberta and Saskatchewan to add to what is a pretty solid junior hockey market in British Columbia.

According to wikipedia, which may not be the most accurate source, the lowest total for any game in 2012 Calgary/Edmonton was 6,983 for a relegation match in Calgary between Latvia and Denmark. The other relegation games were the only ones that fell under 10k. Everything else was reported as over 12k at the least.
 
In reality, they force fed this tournament back to Buffalo for the outdoor game spectacle.

The other finalists after Tampa and Chicago bowed out were St. Louis and Pittsburgh. Not sure if they would've been better options than Buffalo, but after only 7 years, they probably should've gone somewhere else.
 
Chainshot said:
I've gone to CHL Top Prospect games since '96; Memorial Cup games in London, Kitchener, Guelph, Mississauga; Frozen Four's in Buffalo and Tampa; USAH Top Prospect games and NHL drafts in Buffalo, Pittsburgh, and Toronto and there is almost no participation from other people from Buffalo. It's a labor to get people to talk about the Sabres, let alone where future NHLers come from. If they are playing well, hockey is in people's minds. But even the few rabid folks I know are feeling this is too much money to spend.
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I also wonder how many local fans budgeted or gifted a Winter Classic weekend trip to NYC rather than this tournament.
 
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Seems like a perfect storm (pun intended) of factors. In Buffalo in particular maybe there is a bit of over-saturation going on?
 
Simple, really. Have the tournament in North America once every four or five years. The novelty won't wear off. Choose cities that represent junior-level hockey, which are not well served by the pro game. Don't ever have the tournament in a NHL city. Think the Prairies, the Maritimes, and high school/college hockey hotbeds of the US like North Dakota, Wisconsin, and Minnesota that do not have NHL or AHL teams.

The rest of the time, rotate the tourney around the hockey powers of Europe (Sweden, Russia, Finland, Czech Republic, Slovakia) and give regular slots to rising powers (cities like Copenhagen, Riga, Kiev, Minsk, Talinn, Vienna, Innsbruck, any of a number of German options, etc). One of the best ways to grow the game is to let a rising competing country host the tourney.

Most importantly, price the tickets so that junior crowds are encouraged to attend. This idea that the tickets have to be maxed out, so you have to have the tourney in Canada -- or within 100 miles of the Canadian border -- two out of every three years is nonsense. IIHF, stop listening to TSN.
 
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Confucius said:
Has to be a new low for the WJC, Montreal drew heat for sparse crowds when their low was 6,000 plus.
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6000 announced crowds. I was to a few games and there was at most 2000 in there. And the pictures were everywhere, even the Canada games were mostly empty.
 
At this point it's not only the ticket prices that are the problem, the tournament format as well and the lack of real star players. More and more of the best U20 are already in the NHL.
 
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