CdnSailor
10-02-2011, 05:13 PM
Sacrifices are part of the deal when moving to a new city, even when moving to Victoria from Prince George.
For starters, moving to southern Vancouver Island from the Interior means saying goodbye to affordable housing, four distinct seasons and the eight-minute commute. In reality, however, there wasn’t much that Prince George had that Victoria was missing when I moved here almost two years ago.
Major junior hockey was the glaring exception.
Prince George instantly fell in love with the Cougars when owner Rick Brodsky relocated the team and the beloved name to central B.C. in the summer of 1994.
The first season was played in the old, 2,000-seat Coliseum, but what drew Brodsky north was a 6,000-seat arena under construction across town.
The city’s legions of hockey fans craved WHL hockey and routinely filled the new rink for the first seven or eight years, giving not a thought to the people of Victoria or that they were understandably bitter that what was once theirs was taken away.
I was a Cougars season ticket holder in Prince George from 1994 until 2009.
What did Victoria fans miss in those years? There were a few high points, such as when the Cougars came close to winning something semi-important, but there were no first-place finishes and certainly no trips to the Memorial Cup.
Much like their final few years in Victoria, the Cougars’ existence in Prince George has been mostly a mix of unfulfilled expectations and downright futility.
Much has been made of Victorians supposedly holding a grudge against Prince George for “stealing” the Cougars. Truth be told, there were many times in the past decade when Prince George fans would have gladly given them back.
Aside from a few exciting playoff runs that fell short, the highlight for Cougars fans in P.G. has been watching the development of future NHL stars such as the Canucks’ Dan Hamhuis, Boston’s Zdeno Chara, Tampa Bay’s Eric Brewer and Canucks nemesis Dustin Byfuglien, now with Winnipeg.
That’s the beauty of major junior hockey. The players arrive as wide-eyed 16-year-olds, away from home for the first time, and leave at 19 or 20 as men — some with an NHL contract in their back pocket and the promise of stardom on hockey’s biggest stage.
You don’t get that with the ECHL.
The WHL is hockey at its purest — a bus league full of hungry young men playing for each other and an opportunity to someday graduate to the NHL.
It’s great for hockey in Victoria if fans are still harbouring that grudge against Prince George, because there is nothing like a bitter rivalry to stir up emotions in a junior hockey rink.
As for me, I’ll have torn allegiances on a few nights now that the WHL is back in Victoria where it belongs. Seventeen years of loyalty to the Cougars doesn’t disappear overnight.
But this is my town now and I have a new batch of junior hockey stars to follow.
Read more: http://www.timescolonist.com/sports/hockey+divided+loyalties/5489853/story.html#ixzz1ZfXHaMZn
For starters, moving to southern Vancouver Island from the Interior means saying goodbye to affordable housing, four distinct seasons and the eight-minute commute. In reality, however, there wasn’t much that Prince George had that Victoria was missing when I moved here almost two years ago.
Major junior hockey was the glaring exception.
Prince George instantly fell in love with the Cougars when owner Rick Brodsky relocated the team and the beloved name to central B.C. in the summer of 1994.
The first season was played in the old, 2,000-seat Coliseum, but what drew Brodsky north was a 6,000-seat arena under construction across town.
The city’s legions of hockey fans craved WHL hockey and routinely filled the new rink for the first seven or eight years, giving not a thought to the people of Victoria or that they were understandably bitter that what was once theirs was taken away.
I was a Cougars season ticket holder in Prince George from 1994 until 2009.
What did Victoria fans miss in those years? There were a few high points, such as when the Cougars came close to winning something semi-important, but there were no first-place finishes and certainly no trips to the Memorial Cup.
Much like their final few years in Victoria, the Cougars’ existence in Prince George has been mostly a mix of unfulfilled expectations and downright futility.
Much has been made of Victorians supposedly holding a grudge against Prince George for “stealing” the Cougars. Truth be told, there were many times in the past decade when Prince George fans would have gladly given them back.
Aside from a few exciting playoff runs that fell short, the highlight for Cougars fans in P.G. has been watching the development of future NHL stars such as the Canucks’ Dan Hamhuis, Boston’s Zdeno Chara, Tampa Bay’s Eric Brewer and Canucks nemesis Dustin Byfuglien, now with Winnipeg.
That’s the beauty of major junior hockey. The players arrive as wide-eyed 16-year-olds, away from home for the first time, and leave at 19 or 20 as men — some with an NHL contract in their back pocket and the promise of stardom on hockey’s biggest stage.
You don’t get that with the ECHL.
The WHL is hockey at its purest — a bus league full of hungry young men playing for each other and an opportunity to someday graduate to the NHL.
It’s great for hockey in Victoria if fans are still harbouring that grudge against Prince George, because there is nothing like a bitter rivalry to stir up emotions in a junior hockey rink.
As for me, I’ll have torn allegiances on a few nights now that the WHL is back in Victoria where it belongs. Seventeen years of loyalty to the Cougars doesn’t disappear overnight.
But this is my town now and I have a new batch of junior hockey stars to follow.
Read more: http://www.timescolonist.com/sports/hockey+divided+loyalties/5489853/story.html#ixzz1ZfXHaMZn