Attendance Tonight...

[RDRebelsfan]

Noticed on the WHL scoresheet it said the attendance was 4962. I cannot even remember the last time the attendance was listed below 5000. The hell is going on? All the bandwaggon jumpers leaving?

[SectionNDeserter]

It was a Wednesday night, and the World Series was on.

[Shinyshoes]

It was a Wednesday night, and the World Series was on. And yes, The Bandwagon Jumpers are leaving.

[RDRebelsfan]

I guess some people just don't have the patience to wait for another contender. Once it happens again then well it'll be consistent above 6000 again.

[Tinner]

I can't really say what the issue is, but I believe it is somewhat two-fold in nature. First being that the team is struggling and it has been since the Memorial Cup year. Every year is supposed to be better and it really hasn't happened. So I think fans, myself included, find other options or are faced with 2 or 3 things going on, on the same night, and make a choice as to which event they will attend, watch or participate in.

Secondly, having reviewed the Rebel home schedule (did not check to see if it is a league wide issue) all or most of our home games are in bunches and back to back nights. Look at the games for November, a Saturday night game followed by 2 weekends of Friday/Saturday night games. I can't or don't usually attend games on back to back nights as there are other issues or events that happen those same nights and the fact that they are on 2 nights when family events could take precedent.

Before we paint everyone with the same brush, lets look at all the factors and maybe we'll see that the Rebels or the league should look at how they are scheduling games. Of course, that doesn't fix the team woes. As said in the past we'll be better or wait until "next year" is getting old. The 3 or 4 years picking first or near the top of the draft have not produced the results they should have.

[SectionNDeserter]

First being that the team is struggling and it has been since the Memorial Cup year. Every year is supposed to be better and it really hasn't happened.If by struggling, you mean they didn't win the Memorial cup every season--then you could be right. but they did have 4 winning seasons after the memorial cup(100, 105, and 85 and 82 point seasons). They then followed that with a below average season and few up and down seasons before last season's absolute fiasco. If fans are expecting this City to have a team as good as the one that won the memorial cup in 2001 every other season, then they need a big dose of reality. Like any great team, it is going to be a very very long time before we see another one like that come along (possibly never).

My personal feeling is that this team has had its share of very average to below average defensemen since the departure of Meech in 03-04 and Phaneuf at the end of the 04-05 season (when their fortunes changed). We have had some of the better forwards in the league in this time frame (Versteeg, Sutter, Hanzal, Starkov etc.), but have surrounded them with a serviceable, but average skilled defense (Egener, Lynch, Berube, Henry, Flatters, Kurceba, etc.) and below average skilled defense (Scarborugh, Lamoureux, Zavisha, Frere). This is not a problem unique to our team, and top defensemen have become a tough commodity to get a hold of around the league. We could really benefit from one from our current crop of 91-93's stepping up and becoming one of the top defensemen in the league.


So I think fans, myself included, find other options or are faced with 2 or 3 things going on, on the same night, and make a choice as to which event they will attend, watch or participate in.I see this more and more not so much with people that I know that go to the games, but 'friends of friends'. I hear things like 'I missed last night's game, because I took my nephew swimming' etc. So I hear you on this one.


The 3 or 4 years picking first or near the top of the draft have not produced the results they should have.They have really only picked near the top of the draft in 2 of the last 4 seasons(I don't consider 11th and 12th the top of the draft, closer to the middle than the top), and 1 of those two players is arguably the best player on our team, and carries the bulk of our offense. Our other 'top of the draft' pick isn't eligible to play here yet (though if you follow his progess at all, you know he could make an impact here this season).

[tiny]

Because I wanted to compare high draft positon with draft picks, I had to put them together. Do you think we have drafted poorly overall the last four years when we were picking higher in the draft ?????
The ones I think are of note are as follows:

2000-1 Memorial Cup
2001-2 lost in WHL final
2002-3 lost in WHL final this year's 20 y
Rnd 1 - 19 o/a Matthew Cline
Rnd 2 - 39 o/a Jordan Knackstedt
Rnd 5 - 87 o/a James Reimer


2003-4 lost EC final this year's 19y 1
(traded up for 6th o/a) Rnd 1 - 6th o/a Brandon Sutter

2004-5 4th in EC lost in round one this year's 18y
Rnd 1 - 12 o/a Cassidy Mappin
Rnd 2 - 32 o/a Zach Stebner
Rnd 4 - 72 o/a Joel Kot
Rnd 5 - 88 o/a Colin Archer
Rnd 5 - 92 o/a Mike Scarborough
Rnd 7 - 122 o/a Craig Eisenhut
Rnd 9 172 o/a Matt Fraser
Rnd 10 o/a 192 Spencer Edwards
Rnd 11 212 o/a Morgan Clark

2005-6 out of playoffs this year's 17y
Rnd 1 - 2 o/a Landon Ferraro
Rnd 2 - 24 o/a Justin Weller
Rnd 3 - 45 o/a Tory Wilfong

2006-7 4th in EC lost in nround one this year's 16y
Rnd 1 - 11 o/a Conner Redmond
Rnd 2 - 33 o/a Alex Petrovic
Rnd 3 - 62 o/a Brad Deagle
Rnd 5 - 106 o/a Cam Gorchynski
Rnd 6 - 128 o/a Kevin Woodyatt
Rnd 7 - 143 o/a Adam Kambeitz

2007-8 out of playoffs this year's 15y
Rnd 1 - 1 o/a Ryan Nugent-Hopkins
Rnd 2 - 24 o/a Daulton Siwak
Rnd 4 - 68 o/a Matthew Pufahl
Rnd 6 - 118 o/a Channing Bresciani
(these look like quality picks, I don't know much about the other picks this year)

2008-9 ???

[HURRICANE'S ROCK]

Noticed on the WHL scoresheet it said the attendance was 4962. I cannot even remember the last time the attendance was listed below 5000. The hell is going on? All the bandwaggon jumpers leaving?
Most every team in the league would love to have 4962 fans!

[Shinyshoes]

The 3 or 4 years picking first or near the top of the draft have not produced the results they should have.
As Tiny pointed out, those 3 or 4 years of picking first or near the top have produced Mappin, Ferraro, Redmond, and Nugent-Hopkins. (just our 1st pick in each respective draft)

It takes a good 5 years to turn a WHL team around after a streak of winning.

I tried to explain it in a previous thread:
http://whlfans.ca/showpost.php?p=105134&postcount=31

about halfway through this season, you will see the tide starting to turn.....