Sput
03-30-2005, 03:15 AM
With a drop in attendance for a sixth straight season, and a third-consecutive last-place finish in the B.C. Division, the Prince George Cougars haven't exactly been smelling like roses.
No, it has been more like a whiff of warm compost than of fresh-cut, fragrant flowers.
What used to be as hot a piece of paper as existed in this city is now seemingly worthless. There was a time, and not so long ago, when finding an available game ticket, even to buy one, was difficult as the Cougars drew more than 200,000 to the Multiplex for four straight winters.
That's not the case now. Decrease after decrease in season-ticket numbers and a slow-down in walkup sales have hindered the major junior hockey business in Prince George. Never was that more apparent than at the final game of this season, when a head count during the first period led to a tally of 1,922 bodies. The announced attendance, based on tickets sold, was 3,008 - that means more than 1,000 tickets went unused.
These are difficult times for a WHL franchise that was, at least in terms of fan following, very much on its way to establishing itself as an enviable model of community support.
"We seem to have made an awful lot of people angry in Prince George, and whether they're indifferent or angry they have no intention of supporting us," said Cougars owner Rick Brodsky.
"We have to do a better job on the ice and we have to get more people in the building."
That comes with winning. When the team moved north from Victoria in 1994 and had three difficult regular seasons - the first in the Coliseum, the second in the maiden year of the Multiplex - and attendance mirrored the standings when the larger seat inventory was put into play. The Coliseum could only fit 2,112; the Multiplex nearly triple that.
All of a sudden, the unexpected playoff run in the spring of 1997 turned Cougars hockey from a viable business to a cash cow, with Brodsky able to make back some, if not all, of the money he lost during the franchise's last days in Victoria. (As a private business, the Cougars do not divulge profit/loss numbers, nor do they reveal the season-ticket levels, which are believed to have been as high as 4,800, and as low as 2,300, this season's estimate.)
The average ticket count this season, 3,151, can be tied directly to the team's performance on the ice. And in junior hockey, that performance is measured in wins and losses.
"This is Prince George. If we were in first place or if we were in the playoffs, there'd be a buzz around the city," said head coach Lane Lambert. "This is a blue-collar town, and if you give a good effort, have a .500 hockey team (or better), you'll probably get a good crowd, 4,000 or more in the stands."
On that, we all can agree.
But this season, the club broke the 4,000-fan barrier just twice, and the betting is that any astute fan can figure out, without peeking at the chart on this page, which games they were.
Got it yet? Yes, opening night and Teddy Bear Toss.
There was a momentary spike in attendance, driving the average up measurably, after general manager Dallas Thompson, in his first crack at the trade deadline, made four roster moves in the days leading up to Jan. 10. On deadline day itself, he moved four players - Justin Pogge, Dylan Yeo, Tyrel Lucas and Josh Aspenlind - for six new bodies - Matej Trojovsky, Blair Stengler, Tyler Feakes, Lee Zalasky, Scott Bowles, and first-round NHL draft choice Andy Rogers. Danny LaPointe was shipped to Spokane for a draft pick, Petr Jelinek had been added a few days earlier, and captain Myles Zimmer was back from a season-long injury problem.
Almost overnight, the team was bigger, deeper, and younger, and, in a strange mix, somehow more experienced.
But the fans more than took notice that the trades didn't lead to the desired results. The Cougars held a playoff position at the deadline; they won eight games and lost 21 after. Attendance slumped again.
"Yes, it is very disappointing," said Thompson.
"I don't think this team is one where it should be where it is right now (out of the playoffs for the second consecutive season, ending the schedule four points back of the Kamloops Blazers). There were many times we had chances to go up more on Kamloops, and it wasn't there when we needed it."
Brodsky, who often cracks jokes about his hearing aids, isn't deaf to the criticism the franchise takes from the paying public. The sole owner of the team isn't holding any threats over the community, but did speak openly about how the downturn has affected his business.
"I really want to be careful how I phrase this," said Brodsky, who has repeatedly stated his intention to keep the team in Prince George, despite constant rumours - all unsubstantiated - to the contrary.
"I think there's a little onus on the community. I can't operate indefinitely in the red, and I guess (if the lower attendance figures remain) someday a decision would have to be made. Let's just say the team gets better and the people don't come, I'm not going to run it (in Prince George) forever. But it's hard to put any onus on anybody else when we're in last place the last three years in our division, and no one is more aware of that than me. However, having said that, Regina lost 26 games in a row (this past season) and still draws 4,400 people."
It does beg some questions - if the Boston Red Sox existed in Prince George, would the Babe Ruth Curse have lasted 86 years, or would the team have been relocated because of a lack of a championship? What about the Toronto Maple Leafs, who sell out consistently despite not winning the Stanley Cup since 1967? If Toronto ticket-purchasers followed the reaction of fans here, the Leafs would have trucked to Florida sometime in the late 1970s.
Of Brodsky's personality traits, one is stubbornness - something that draws criticism, but also gives a sense of the man and his desire to ice a winning Cougars team. Winning brings in more fans, more fans means more money - so anyone who suggests the owner cares more about the bottom line than the standings is misguided at best.
"We're not (giving up)," said Brodsky, a clear message to those who continue to hope he'll sell the team to someone who will promise to keep the club in Prince George.
"It's a work in progress. I keep hearing it's a marathon, not a sprint, and if I hear that saying one more time I'm gonna puke. It's really surprising. we're not totally stupid, we work hard, we draft reasonably well, we've had that discussion enough, and yet we're in last place. I can't figure it out."
It needs to be figured out soon. The team's all-time winning percentage, .451, and the lack of a playoff series victory since the spring of 2000 were the apparent motivations for one fan who carried two signs at the season finale - "Fire Thompson", and "Too Many Excuses For Far Too Long."
"That's the interesting thing," said Brodsky, when asked about the signs.
"You can call me what you want, you're entitled to your opinion, but there isn't an ounce of me that hired Dallas Thompson as general manager because he's married to (his daughter and club business manager) Brandi. Absolutely not one iota."
Asked if he could fire Thompson, Brodsky paused.
"I think I could get him to leave. I don't think I would have to talk to Dallas. If he thought he wasn't doing the job, he wouldn't want it, I know that for sure. But you know what? I've had lots of people around the league, you know how we all talk, tell me they really think Dallas is doing a great job, and he's well thought-of. And I'd like to have a nickel for everyone in Prince George who's told me Brandi's doing a good job."
Then, like a father, he laughs at the suggestion that Brandi has extra pull with her boss, the ability to push the envelope, that no one else would get.
"Yeah, there's a certain latitude there I've noticed, things (former business manager Dane MacKinnon) wouldn't have tried," said Brodsky, who then anticipates, perhaps defensively, the next question - the family-run aspect of the business.
"Yeah, hire a stranger when you know your own child can do the job. Yeah, that makes sense. I like saying she's got a degree in economics, she knows a helluva lot more about a lot of that stuff than I do."
Brodsky says all staff have his full support. He says, and has said in the past, that he won't hesitate to throw money at problems, if that's the best solution.
"I'm there (to help Thompson), (former GM, now director of player hockey operations Daryl Lubiniecki) is there, and the thing some people forget is that it's not any one guy."
It's a team effort. But one that has not yet led anywhere near junior hockey's Holy Grail, the Memorial Cup.
Brodsky has taken a different path the last two years, frustrated that so-called experienced hockey men couldn't lead the team to a banner of any kind - regular season or playoffs. With Thompson as the GM and Lambert as the head coach, Brodsky is working outside the box that was the norm for the first nine seasons in Prince George.
The challenge now for the franchise, to get the fans back and put the business on track, is to improve the results on-ice. With victories, with a hard-working team that competes every night, come supporters, maybe even the boisterous ones who made the Multiplex a feared building back in the spring of 1997.
No, it has been more like a whiff of warm compost than of fresh-cut, fragrant flowers.
What used to be as hot a piece of paper as existed in this city is now seemingly worthless. There was a time, and not so long ago, when finding an available game ticket, even to buy one, was difficult as the Cougars drew more than 200,000 to the Multiplex for four straight winters.
That's not the case now. Decrease after decrease in season-ticket numbers and a slow-down in walkup sales have hindered the major junior hockey business in Prince George. Never was that more apparent than at the final game of this season, when a head count during the first period led to a tally of 1,922 bodies. The announced attendance, based on tickets sold, was 3,008 - that means more than 1,000 tickets went unused.
These are difficult times for a WHL franchise that was, at least in terms of fan following, very much on its way to establishing itself as an enviable model of community support.
"We seem to have made an awful lot of people angry in Prince George, and whether they're indifferent or angry they have no intention of supporting us," said Cougars owner Rick Brodsky.
"We have to do a better job on the ice and we have to get more people in the building."
That comes with winning. When the team moved north from Victoria in 1994 and had three difficult regular seasons - the first in the Coliseum, the second in the maiden year of the Multiplex - and attendance mirrored the standings when the larger seat inventory was put into play. The Coliseum could only fit 2,112; the Multiplex nearly triple that.
All of a sudden, the unexpected playoff run in the spring of 1997 turned Cougars hockey from a viable business to a cash cow, with Brodsky able to make back some, if not all, of the money he lost during the franchise's last days in Victoria. (As a private business, the Cougars do not divulge profit/loss numbers, nor do they reveal the season-ticket levels, which are believed to have been as high as 4,800, and as low as 2,300, this season's estimate.)
The average ticket count this season, 3,151, can be tied directly to the team's performance on the ice. And in junior hockey, that performance is measured in wins and losses.
"This is Prince George. If we were in first place or if we were in the playoffs, there'd be a buzz around the city," said head coach Lane Lambert. "This is a blue-collar town, and if you give a good effort, have a .500 hockey team (or better), you'll probably get a good crowd, 4,000 or more in the stands."
On that, we all can agree.
But this season, the club broke the 4,000-fan barrier just twice, and the betting is that any astute fan can figure out, without peeking at the chart on this page, which games they were.
Got it yet? Yes, opening night and Teddy Bear Toss.
There was a momentary spike in attendance, driving the average up measurably, after general manager Dallas Thompson, in his first crack at the trade deadline, made four roster moves in the days leading up to Jan. 10. On deadline day itself, he moved four players - Justin Pogge, Dylan Yeo, Tyrel Lucas and Josh Aspenlind - for six new bodies - Matej Trojovsky, Blair Stengler, Tyler Feakes, Lee Zalasky, Scott Bowles, and first-round NHL draft choice Andy Rogers. Danny LaPointe was shipped to Spokane for a draft pick, Petr Jelinek had been added a few days earlier, and captain Myles Zimmer was back from a season-long injury problem.
Almost overnight, the team was bigger, deeper, and younger, and, in a strange mix, somehow more experienced.
But the fans more than took notice that the trades didn't lead to the desired results. The Cougars held a playoff position at the deadline; they won eight games and lost 21 after. Attendance slumped again.
"Yes, it is very disappointing," said Thompson.
"I don't think this team is one where it should be where it is right now (out of the playoffs for the second consecutive season, ending the schedule four points back of the Kamloops Blazers). There were many times we had chances to go up more on Kamloops, and it wasn't there when we needed it."
Brodsky, who often cracks jokes about his hearing aids, isn't deaf to the criticism the franchise takes from the paying public. The sole owner of the team isn't holding any threats over the community, but did speak openly about how the downturn has affected his business.
"I really want to be careful how I phrase this," said Brodsky, who has repeatedly stated his intention to keep the team in Prince George, despite constant rumours - all unsubstantiated - to the contrary.
"I think there's a little onus on the community. I can't operate indefinitely in the red, and I guess (if the lower attendance figures remain) someday a decision would have to be made. Let's just say the team gets better and the people don't come, I'm not going to run it (in Prince George) forever. But it's hard to put any onus on anybody else when we're in last place the last three years in our division, and no one is more aware of that than me. However, having said that, Regina lost 26 games in a row (this past season) and still draws 4,400 people."
It does beg some questions - if the Boston Red Sox existed in Prince George, would the Babe Ruth Curse have lasted 86 years, or would the team have been relocated because of a lack of a championship? What about the Toronto Maple Leafs, who sell out consistently despite not winning the Stanley Cup since 1967? If Toronto ticket-purchasers followed the reaction of fans here, the Leafs would have trucked to Florida sometime in the late 1970s.
Of Brodsky's personality traits, one is stubbornness - something that draws criticism, but also gives a sense of the man and his desire to ice a winning Cougars team. Winning brings in more fans, more fans means more money - so anyone who suggests the owner cares more about the bottom line than the standings is misguided at best.
"We're not (giving up)," said Brodsky, a clear message to those who continue to hope he'll sell the team to someone who will promise to keep the club in Prince George.
"It's a work in progress. I keep hearing it's a marathon, not a sprint, and if I hear that saying one more time I'm gonna puke. It's really surprising. we're not totally stupid, we work hard, we draft reasonably well, we've had that discussion enough, and yet we're in last place. I can't figure it out."
It needs to be figured out soon. The team's all-time winning percentage, .451, and the lack of a playoff series victory since the spring of 2000 were the apparent motivations for one fan who carried two signs at the season finale - "Fire Thompson", and "Too Many Excuses For Far Too Long."
"That's the interesting thing," said Brodsky, when asked about the signs.
"You can call me what you want, you're entitled to your opinion, but there isn't an ounce of me that hired Dallas Thompson as general manager because he's married to (his daughter and club business manager) Brandi. Absolutely not one iota."
Asked if he could fire Thompson, Brodsky paused.
"I think I could get him to leave. I don't think I would have to talk to Dallas. If he thought he wasn't doing the job, he wouldn't want it, I know that for sure. But you know what? I've had lots of people around the league, you know how we all talk, tell me they really think Dallas is doing a great job, and he's well thought-of. And I'd like to have a nickel for everyone in Prince George who's told me Brandi's doing a good job."
Then, like a father, he laughs at the suggestion that Brandi has extra pull with her boss, the ability to push the envelope, that no one else would get.
"Yeah, there's a certain latitude there I've noticed, things (former business manager Dane MacKinnon) wouldn't have tried," said Brodsky, who then anticipates, perhaps defensively, the next question - the family-run aspect of the business.
"Yeah, hire a stranger when you know your own child can do the job. Yeah, that makes sense. I like saying she's got a degree in economics, she knows a helluva lot more about a lot of that stuff than I do."
Brodsky says all staff have his full support. He says, and has said in the past, that he won't hesitate to throw money at problems, if that's the best solution.
"I'm there (to help Thompson), (former GM, now director of player hockey operations Daryl Lubiniecki) is there, and the thing some people forget is that it's not any one guy."
It's a team effort. But one that has not yet led anywhere near junior hockey's Holy Grail, the Memorial Cup.
Brodsky has taken a different path the last two years, frustrated that so-called experienced hockey men couldn't lead the team to a banner of any kind - regular season or playoffs. With Thompson as the GM and Lambert as the head coach, Brodsky is working outside the box that was the norm for the first nine seasons in Prince George.
The challenge now for the franchise, to get the fans back and put the business on track, is to improve the results on-ice. With victories, with a hard-working team that competes every night, come supporters, maybe even the boisterous ones who made the Multiplex a feared building back in the spring of 1997.