Menu
Events and Attractions

Montreal Will Continue To Co-Host World Junior Hockey Championship, Along With Toronto

Hockey Canada yesterday "reaffirmed its commitment to Montreal as a co-host city" for the World Junior Hockey Championship when President & CEO Tom Renney "threw cold water on the idea of holding the tournament exclusively in Toronto" in '17, according to Stephen Whyno of the CP. Attendance issues at Bell Centre were a "cause for concern" at the tournament. But Renney said, "We're deeply committed to Montreal, as we should be." Whyno noted Renney "took over for Bob Nicholson this past summer and was not responsible for prices that were set before he came on the job." Renney "deferred comment on ticket prices until Hockey Canada can review everything about this tournament but assumed the onus for decisions moving forward." Renney "wasn't certain on how much of a profit Hockey Canada would reap from this tournament." He said it might be “a little light” of an estimated C$20-25M (CP, 1/5). THE HOCKEY NEWS' Ken Campbell noted both IIHF President Rene Fasel and Council Member Frank Gonzalez "acknowledged at a news conference Sunday that the Montreal numbers did not reach expectation and would consider the possibility of holding the entire tournament in Toronto." Gonzalez said, "We would love to go back there. It’s just the numbers there were not what we expected. We have to find the cause and fix that and come back to Montreal and move forward in 2017. If not, we will have to look at our options, of course." Attendance at the Toronto games for teams not involving Canada during the preliminary round "were very good, but Montreal was nothing short of a debacle." The four games involving Canada in the preliminary round "attracted an average of 15,222, which is more than 6,000 under capacity." Even the Dec. 31 game against the U.S. that "determined the winner" of Group A drew only 18,295" (THEHOCKEYNEWS.com, 1/4).

THE PRICE IS WRONG: The IIHF said that Hockey Canada "was responsible for the ticket prices that may have led to empty seats at Montreal's Bell Centre for preliminary games." Fasel said, "I was really surprised. If you would do this pricing in Europe, you would have nobody in the arena." Fasel "wondered if marketing and the economy in Montreal played a role" in attendance problems, but "conceded not personally knowing what the ticket value should be." Fasel "pointed out that this would finish as the third-most-attended world junior championship in history." He expects the tournament "to post a total attendance between 365,000 and 385,000." Fasel: "It's not too bad, really. It's really a nice problem to discuss" (CP, 1/4).

UPON FURTHER REVIEW: THE HOCKEY NEWS' Campbell wrote the tournament "will go down as an unmitigated disaster when measured against what was expected of it." When Hockey Canada made the decision to have Toronto and Montreal co-host, it "did so with visions of dollar signs and full arenas in its head." It "could not have imagined in its worst nightmares that the attendance in the two biggest hockey markets in the world would draw fewer fans for the WJC than Ottawa did" in '09 and Calgary-Edmonton did in '12. Renney "does not deserve to be judged for the failures of this tournament." But if it is "more of the same or worse" in '17, "he’ll be the one who takes the heat" (THEHOCKEYNEWS.com, 1/5). The GLOBE & MAIL's Cathal Kelly wrote the event this time around "hasn't really been about hockey." Rather, "it's been about the crowd." Kelly: "Given its first real chance to shine, Toronto took advantage. Knowing they’d be compared with lacklustre crowds in Montreal, fans here came committed to making themselves heard" (GLOBE & MAIL, 1/3).

KIND OF A BIG DEAL: In N.Y., Brett Cyrgalis wrote this tournament "is a big deal in Canada, and honestly, it should be a bigger deal" in the U.S. The "passion these under-20 kids play with is infectious." It is "like the Olympics, only more interesting when you know the back-story of each player and project it into the future" (N.Y. POST, 1/3).

SBJ Morning Buzzcast: March 25, 2024

NFL meeting preview; MLB's opening week ad effort and remembering Peter Angelos.

Big Get Jay Wright, March Madness is upon us and ESPN locks up CFP

On this week’s pod, our Big Get is CBS Sports college basketball analyst Jay Wright. The NCAA Championship-winning coach shares his insight with SBJ’s Austin Karp on key hoops issues and why being well dressed is an important part of his success. Also on the show, Poynter Institute senior writer Tom Jones shares who he has up and who is down in sports media. Later, SBJ’s Ben Portnoy talks the latest on ESPN’s CFP extension and who CBS, TNT Sports and ESPN need to make deep runs in the men’s and women's NCAA basketball tournaments.

SBJ I Factor: Nana-Yaw Asamoah

SBJ I Factor features an interview with AMB Sports and Entertainment Chief Commercial Office Nana-Yaw Asamoah. Asamoah, who moved over to AMBSE last year after 14 years at the NFL, talks with SBJ’s Ben Fischer about how his role model parents and older sisters pushed him to shrive, how the power of lifelong learning fuels successful people, and why AMBSE was an opportunity he could not pass up. Asamoah is 2021 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree. SBJ I Factor is a monthly podcast offering interviews with sports executives who have been recipients of one of the magazine’s awards.

Shareable URL copied to clipboard!

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2015/01/06/Events-and-Attractions/World-Juniors.aspx

Sorry, something went wrong with the copy but here is the link for you.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2015/01/06/Events-and-Attractions/World-Juniors.aspx

CLOSE