Mark Chipman is searching for the best way to navigate a delicate situation, fully grasping the gravity of the subject matter. Seated at a table inside the Director’s Lounge at Canada Life Centre on T...
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“We feel like we need to get back to 13,000 and the reason for that is that it’s not an issue of do or die — or viability or not, it’s long-term health and competitiveness is dependent on a healthy season ticket base,” said Chipman. “We’ve been a (salary) cap team now for several years and there’s not a direct correlation between dollars spent and winning. In other words, spending to the cap doesn’t guarantee you win the Stanley Cup but spending well below the cap pretty much ensures that you won’t.”
That’s why restoring the season ticket base is so important.
“It just doesn’t allow us to be healthy. What do I mean by healthy? It doesn’t give us the ability to continue to invest in payroll, to continue to invest in the building. To keep up, because the cap is going to spike,” said Chipman. “It’s coming quick and that’s a reality, in terms of many, many millions of dollars in increase coming in the cap. We just want to be able to keep up at the competitive level of this league. I don’t want to fall behind.
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JMO, but this is how I see it as well. Not filling the building on a night by night basis doesn't necessarily mean the team is moving to Houston....but it does means the team can't compete financially with the best teams in the NHL. And not having the financial resources to pay the players what you need to, especially in Winnipeg that has a hard enough time getting players to want to play here, is going to mean always being on the outside of success looking in.
Yes , spending to the cap doesn't guarantee success, but spending to the bottom will most likely guarantee failure.