This league would have a hard time competing against junior teams as well, as those players are the "future" of hockey, and ticket prices are very affordable. The London Knights, for example, usually are loaded with top NHL prospects at $25 per ticket. Top players who aren't junior eligible are either in the NHL or AHL. Josh Kestner was the leading scorer in the ECHL last season - this is the caliber of players the Canadian league would be putting out and this is a hard sell in CHL markets when basically every team has players that are drafted into the NHL.
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This is the part I'd disagree with. London is proof there is room for a mid-tier league in this country. You have Acadie bathrust in the same league as cities like London,Quebec city etc.
There's a number of cities that would benefit from national league. London/Halifax/Quebec/Saskatoon/Victoria/Water-kitch/Hamilton etc. Not to mention Levis/Laval/Markham/Brampton etc.
I think 8-12 teams would be the maximum size, and it'd be obviously dependent on a billionaire shut out of the NHL/broadcasting company desperate for content(either streaming/cable).
The biggest problem with the ECHL is its a league full of places I never heard of. This is the only reason the CFL exists. It taps into markets that are shutout of the big leagues/want to be national.
If it were a 30 years ago when everyone lived in roughly the same place it wouldn't be such a pull. But in 2020 people live everywhere. The beauty of a national league is that I can follow my Hometown Halifaxians when I'm living in Toronto. By simple math if 10 percent of halifax fans move to Toronto(a consistent stat) you fill a number of games by just being national.
ECHL/AHL have the same trouble of being comprised of teams that aren't national.
The CHL isn't the right scale for the middle tier cities. And anytime we're talking about a national league those are the cities we are referring to.
I'm not buying the "player quality" argument either. If that were the case the MLS would never of existed. And I think being a hometown sport for mid tier cities more than offsets the lack of top tier soccer in NA. The flip side of the player quality argument is that all your players are tourists. There's no sticking around etc. Soon as you get to know someones name they're gone. This is great if you want to be a feeder league but I think this is a case of people speaking for everyone else. Not to mention the number of 1st round drafts drops like a rock once you move beyond Londons etc, and this trend will likely continue. The local fans aren't gonna give two flips that a Panters 4th line winger once played in saskatoon. The diehards don't fill arenas, how the league is presented matters a lot more than people want to admit. Most people aren't gonna drive 3 hours to see "a game", they want an after work hangout with an impressive atmosphere. Going to a knights game felt far more major league than going to a sens game. Having a team in saginaw doesn't elevate the imagine of the London Knights. The london knights are huge exactly because it's the only thing going on in one of the dullest cities in Canada. Too far from Toronto for regular "day trips", not big enough to have much of anything to do. I get a lot of people fetish the development system, but hockey is still the leading form of winter/fall entertainment.
I'd imagine a Canadian League as approaching an upper tier AHL team in terms of scale. With 8-12 teams tops. Potentially setting up roots in if Ottawa etc ever loose their team. The trick is planning it to fill the major league voids of the country. Put a major major effort on getting hometown players, make it a brother against brother league. Put a big push on capturing hometown nostalgia among transplants etc. Focus heavily on scheduling and broadcasting the games so familes split across provinces can follow them. Potentially set it up so teams can visit neighboring cities more often Halifax-Moncton, Saskatoon-Lethbridge Victoria-Nanaimo etc.
The country is starved for a national league like the CFL. The CFL would be the ideal vehicle for this, but the sport has zero pull in the East. Halifax/Mississauga/London/Kitchener/Quebec would all big massive CFL cities if anyone cared about the sport.
But for most Eastern Canadians, football is an American sport, that has a massive following in Saskatchewan with a modest one in Manitoba/Alberta. Most of it's viewership comes from a very different generation of people, back when the NHL was just 1 step above a minor league in the US.
I guess I should make a habbit of this, but it also needs to be mentioned where I'm from and where my connections in this country are from. Victoria-London-Toronto-Halifax-StJohn's, and I'd be hard pressed to believe that so many posting on this form have any experience in those smaller cities. I'd argue that 90 percent of people on this sub have zero interest in the topic on any personal local level, that counts for a whole lot when they seem to be speaking for what us midtier folk want.
I get a little frustrated when people assume the World has to revolve around the American Big 3/Toronto sports model. Again I'm not arguing its a given. But what I'm tired of arguing with is the notion something either has to exist or it never will exist. As if the whole world has been worked out so perfectly. The magical of potential is that it can be harnessed or it can lay dormant for very long periods of time. Sports fans tend to discount potential when its not their own, so I don't think it's a shock people tend to jump at the idea that potential exists. An all Canadian League is up there with a "new expansion team" in having the potential to happen, but at the same time a very very high chance of remaining dormant/failing.