In some respects teams with smaller venues could feel the pinch less right now. What's the current limit for gatherings in Manitoba, like 500 people? Like I said before, I went to some weeknight Ice games where there were less than a thousand people in attendance (barely 500 some nights), and I doubt they all paid for their tickets, so the numbers could potentially be not that far off from how they were last season. Much bigger hit in places like Calgary where they have thousands of paying customers a night.
But yeah, this doesn't say much for the Ice's prospects at this point. You have to wonder when or even if the new rink will get built given that no one knows when sports will return to normal. The Ice are possibly one of the worst-timed sports franchises in history... they came to Winnipeg once it already had NHL and AHL teams established, they play in the tiniest building in the CHL, and as if that wasn't tough enough now we have a pandemic on our hands. I really hope they can make it through but this is about as daunting a set of circumstances as I can imagine for a new team.
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In happier news, today's Free Press is reporting that import G Eugen Rabcan has signed with the Ice. (Weird, no mention of it on the social media channels.) Apparently Nikkanen is waiting to see if the Finnish league gets going this fall before he makes any moves although it would be awesome to see him here this season. No one seems to know what the Hawks have planned for Teply and whether or not he'll be back.