WHL commissioner says Hat attendance will improve with time

By Ryan McCracken on April 2, 2018.

rmccracken@medicinehatnews.com  @MHNMcCracken

Western Hockey League commissioner Ron Robison says he believes Medicine Hat Tigers attendance will steadily rise with time, but he’d still like to see higher numbers in the interim.

The Tigers have seen a consistent drop-off in attendance through the opening round of the post-season for the past 11 years, but hit a 21-year playoff low when only 2,943 showed up to take in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference quarter-final against the Brandon Wheat Kings last Sunday. The trend started in the team’s previous home at The Arena, and while it hasn’t noticeably improved since moving to the state-of-the-art Canalta Centre, Robison says a number of factors will likely bring about better figures in the future.

“For every one of our clubs it’s a challenging entertainment market today, there’s an awful lot going on, a lot of hockey being broadcast, there’s other reasons where people are busy with their schedules, but we’d certainly like to see more attendance here,” said Robison, adding the Canalta Centre offers fans and players all of the amenities the league hopes to see from an arena. “The building is just a wonderful facility and the Tigers obviously have a very competitive and entertaining team to watch. I think that’s just a matter of time before that happens and you’re going to see increased attendance in the future.”

While the Tigers matched up against a distant team in the Wheat Kings for their opening series in both of their playoff runs at the Canalta Centre, Robison says the current playoff format — which mirrors that of the National Hockey League —has been helping stimulate interest and attendance in the first round while generally cutting down on player travel by pitting rivals against one another.

This season’s final standings have been somewhat of an anomaly, resulting in a stacked East Division and non-traditional first-round matchups in terms of point production. The Swift Current Broncos and Regina Pats finished second and third, respectively, in both the Eastern Conference and East Division, but were forced to meet up in the first round, while the bottom two squads in the Lethbridge Hurricanes and Red Deer Rebels squared off to open the post-season in the Central Division. The bracketed system also forces the winner of Regina and Swift Current to face the top-seeded Moose Jaw Warriors or Prince Albert Raiders in the second round, while allowing the one of the Wheat Kings, Tigers, Hurricanes and Rebels to reach the Eastern Conference final without facing any of the top three teams.

But even under these rare circumstances, Robison says the rivalry-based system is the superior option.

“I think when you look into it, it’s more than just the seeding of teams in a playoff competition, whether it’s conference format or a divisional format,” said Robison, adding series like Moose Jaw against Prince Albert and Regina against Swift Current are garnering significant interest. “For us, in this particular case it’s about the fact that we can reduce travel from the players’ standpoint, we can take advantage of the great rivalries we have.

“Consequently I think we’ve never seen this type of interest in the first round of the playoffs, particularly when you look at those natural rivalries within the divisions.”

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