OT: Winnipeg ICE sold - Moving to Wenatchee, Washington renamed Wenatchee Wild

[jetsmooseice]

Yeah, the iceplex is nice for them from a dressing room/facility perspective- although I should note, the freeze basically stopped reporting attendance last year.

Now that the ICE are gone, I wonder if Fettes and Cockell will try to promote their MJHL teams at all? I don't expect the Blues or Freeze to match the level of fan interest in the ICE, but it would be kind of cool if they could at least generate some critical mass of fans so when you go, you don't feel like you're intruding on some U11 game with mainly relatives and friends of players in the stands.

500 fans a game for the Blues or Freeze would be great. I'm certainly going to go to a few games now that the ICE are gone. Bisons too.

 

[Tom ServoMST3K]

Now that the ICE are gone, I wonder if Fettes and Cockell will try to promote their MJHL teams at all? I don't expect the Blues or Freeze to match the level of fan interest in the ICE, but it would be kind of cool if they could at least generate some critical mass of fans so when you go, you don't feel like you're intruding on some U11 game with mainly relatives and friends of players in the stands.

500 fans a game for the Blues or Freeze would be great. I'm certainly going to go to a few games now that the ICE are gone. Bisons too.

Apr 2023: Pistons led MJHL in attendance for 2022/2023 season

If there was any doubt the Steinbach market was ready for an upgraded building to watch junior hockey, it was put to rest by the 2022/2023 attendance numbers. Steinbach averaged over 100 fans more tha...

www.winnipegfreepress.com

Freeze: 106/game
Blues: 117/game

I have a spreadsheet tracking this game by game for each franchise kicking around somewhere, but what it appeared to boil down to is as soon as attendance was about to drop below 100/game for the Freeze, the numbers stopped showing up on the MJHL website.

Now that the ICE are gone, I wonder if Fettes and Cockell will try to promote their MJHL teams at all? I don't expect the Blues or Freeze to match the level of fan interest in the ICE, but it would be kind of cool if they could at least generate some critical mass of fans so when you go, you don't feel like you're intruding on some U11 game with mainly relatives and friends of players in the stands.

500 fans a game for the Blues or Freeze would be great. I'm certainly going to go to a few games now that the ICE are gone. Bisons too.

500/game would be roughly league average. I went to a Dauphin/Freeze game after the High School Championships, and I don't think there were 50 people in attendance.

 

[RetroWinnipeg]

Anyone notice how Shivers disappeared in the 2nd half of the season? That should have been a sign.

 

[jetsmooseice]

Anyone notice how Shivers disappeared in the 2nd half of the season? That should have been a sign.

LOL

He must have been out in Wenatchee looking at apartments, that shifty little bastard

 

[Guardian17]

Winnipeg Ice sold, will move to Washington for 2023-24 season

The Western Hockey League team has been sold to an ownership group led by David White.

winnipegsun.com

 

[MeHateHe]

Can anyone enlighten us about why he has such a mad-on about the Ice?

 

[jetsmooseice]

Can anyone enlighten us about why he has such a mad-on about the Ice?

I was wondering the same thing myself.

 

[Tom ServoMST3K]

Can anyone enlighten us about why he has such a mad-on about the Ice?

 

[MeHateHe]

Yeah, I saw that. And thanks, but I was hoping for a little expansion on that.

And I'm getting the sense that the problems the Ice had ran beyond the ability to get an arena built. I get that reporters can be babies sometimes (I used to be one and I used to be one) but if you've let a relationship with a reporter get this bad, you're digging yourself out of a pretty big hole.

 

[DeepFrickinValue]

Moose being moved next?

 

[jetsmooseice]

Yeah, I saw that. And thanks, but I was hoping for a little expansion on that.

And I'm getting the sense that the problems the Ice had ran beyond the ability to get an arena built. I get that reporters can be babies sometimes (I used to be one and I used to be one) but if you've let a relationship with a reporter get this bad, you're digging yourself out of a pretty big hole.

I guess the ICE were pretty touchy with reporters. When Mike Sawatzky of the Free Press wrote about the WHL imposing a fine on the ICE, that was it for him. He went from being the only regular reporter on the team to writing nothing at all anymore. I assume he became persona non grata at the ICE Cave. The Free Press brought in Joshua Frey-Sam to replace him.

 

[blueandgoldguy]

Looks bad on 50 below/24-7/whatever. After pulling the rug out from under Cranbrook, they came to Winnipeg with a dubious arena plan that appeared to have less than a 50/50 chance of even coming to fruition and was laughably under-estimated in terms of cost. $20 million for a 4500 seat arena, even in 2019...sure thing! They had no backup plan. They had nearly 5 years to gain some sort of the traction with another arena plan...but I doubt they were ever serious about putting in the majority of the financing. Likely looking for a major public handout which wouldn't be forthcoming.

It also sounds like the lack of media attention was their own doing. That didn't help ticket sales. They seemed to always announce crowds of 1600 but whenever I watched highlights it looked like less than half that amount. I would also look at the website and available seats, the day before or the day of the game, and nearly half the seats would still be available...and of course, they would release attendance numbers of 1600.

So congrats to the former owners for likely killing any chance of a WHL team returning to Winnipeg...or even to Manitoba for the next generation.

 

[wasup]

They both play out of the IcePlex which is already pretty premium for the MJHL

No they don't , they play out of "The Rink ' on McGillivary . The one they own and run their U15 U16 and U18 teams and development programs out of . The Iceplex is a rival development program .

The Freeze are a disaster team year after year and the Blues have never had a player play for the Winnipeg Ice . It is a for profit org that charges a bunch to play while most of the other MJHL teams have a minimal 500 dollar fee to play for the year and a bunch of teams waive those fees .

 

[Al Camino]

I'm very surprised that they don't move the Winnipeg Freeze to Brandon? Instant rivalry with Virden/Neepawa and plus Brandon produces many very good young hockey players. Their U18 and U17 AAA teams are usually very good.

Scheduling would be difficult at best as both are weekend leagues. And I don’t think Brandon is going to allow it unless it’s a different ownership group.

Damn cold.

And that’s why the Freeze or Blues will end up in Brandon

 

[Al Camino]

That’s just horrible due diligence by the ownership group. Their whole business plan seemed to be based on crossed fingers.

I’ve been saying the same thing. Who was going to pay for the arena? Seems if the pockets were as deep as reported they would have done it.

 

[CaptainUgly]

it was inevitable. Sucks though….

 

[jetsmooseice]

No they don't , they play out of "The Rink ' on McGillivary . The one they own and run their U15 U16 and U18 teams and development programs out of . The Iceplex is a rival development program .

The Freeze are a disaster team year after year and the Blues have never had a player play for the Winnipeg Ice . It is a for profit org that charges a bunch to play while most of the other MJHL teams have a minimal 500 dollar fee to play for the year and a bunch of teams waive those fees .

Both the MJHL teams are at the iceplex. The Blues moved from The Rink late in the regular season, oddly enough.

(Edit: I said freeze but I meant Blues)

 

[Tom ServoMST3K]

No they don't , they play out of "The Rink ' on McGillivary . The one they own and run their U15 U16 and U18 teams and development programs out of . The Iceplex is a rival development program .

The Freeze are a disaster team year after year and the Blues have never had a player play for the Winnipeg Ice . It is a for profit org that charges a bunch to play while most of the other MJHL teams have a minimal 500 dollar fee to play for the year and a bunch of teams waive those fees .

The Freeze played 29 games at the "hockey for all centre" - aka the ice plex - last season.

The Blues played a few games there, but were mostly at RINK.

31 games for the Freeze at the iceplex next season, and I don't see RINK on the schedule at all for either team - a couple games at 7 Oaks though.

This thread has had an extremely positive effect in that I found out that the MJHL released next year's schedule yesterday, lol.

I watched a lot of Freeze games last season, and I can say that they really sucked. They even had a couple good goalies, but they just bled quality chances.

 

[roccerfeller]

I don't get it, what's the "scam" he's talking about? The ICE tried and failed to get an arena built. They ran a great team for four seasons. As a season ticket holder I certainly got my money's worth. I don't feel "scammed". Although in hindsight I kind of regret dropping $40 on a new hat during the playoffs, haha.

Sun reporters man. They suck lol.

It’s their shtick (not just winnipeg sun but sun in general)

 

[Channelcat]

My understanding is that there was never any legitimate attempt at getting a building done and this was a flip from the get to.

 

[sipowicz]

My understanding is that there was never any legitimate attempt at getting a building done and this was a flip from the get to.

No one is spending $50-60 million to build a rink for CHL hockey in any city with an NHL rink!

Ice owners were naive if they thought the three levels of govt. would pony up to under write the Cost!

 

[Channelcat]

No one is spending $50-60 million to build a rink for CHL hockey in any city with an NHL rink!

Ice owners were naive if they thought the three levels of govt. would pony up to under write the Cost!

Perhaps not, but there has been no confirmation that that they even spoke to anyone at any level of government.

 

[lanky]

My understanding is that there was never any legitimate attempt at getting a building done and this was a flip from the get to.

Weird.
A team on the rise, try to get a championship then sell high?
I wonder how it worked out financially.

 

[sipowicz]

Weird.
A team on the rise, try to get a championship then sell high?
I wonder how it worked out financially.

Probably a good flip and getting paid in US$$$$

guess that was the plan all along

 

[DudeWhereIsMakar]

I'm gonna be mad if Craig Heisinger brings his son(s) into the Jets/Moose organization.

Other than that, I think all the Ice staff are bound to be fired. But hey, at least Wenatchee is nice. I do see it being the Ice's last stop.

But other than that, all I wonder is what happens with the Blues/Freeze. But I could see TNSE potentially bringing in their own WHL team. If not, they shouldn't even bring one unless they open a WHL-esque rink in Winnipeg. Sad thing is the Ice had a very good hockey program with The Rink.