Ice Hockey venues

[KingmanIII]

Originally Posted by BoulderGrad

15,000? It's gon' have to grow a bit to support an NHL team. Even the Coyotes could average 15,000 fans (when they weren't on the verge of being moved).

That's number of tickets distributed, though -- actual paid attendance is usually much lower.

In a place like Winnipeg, if they say 15,000, you're gonna see 15,000 butts in the seats.

[isaidso]

Winnipeg really should have made the arena a little bit bigger though. 17,500 isn't that much bigger than what they have now, but the optics of it from an NHL point of view is better. 15,000 suggests that Winnipeg isn't a large enough city to host an NHL club. If MTS held 17,500 fans, I bet they'd still sell it out.

Despite having only 730,000 people, Winnipeg is a far superior hockey market than a good 60% of the cities that presently have a team.

[Somnifor]

The Clinton Arena in Clinton, New York is where I learned to love hockey. It was built in 1953 and seats 2,000 which is the same as the population of the town. It's construction was funded by donations from the people of the town.
From 1953 to 1973 it was home to the Clinton Comets of the EHL, it was also the site of a number of minor league playoff games after that and was used for some scenes in the movie Slapshot. It is also the home of high school and youth hockey programs. It is a quintessential old small town arena.

These aren't the greatest photos but they were all I could find.

Exterior:



Interior:

[Jim856796]

How can the capacity of the MTS Centre be increased to 17,000, anyway?There is no room for expansion of this arena.

[KingmanIII]

Originally Posted by isaidso

Winnipeg really should have made the arena a little bit bigger though. 17,500 isn't that much bigger than what they have now, but the optics of it from an NHL point of view is better. 15,000 suggests that Winnipeg isn't a large enough city to host an NHL club. If MTS held 17,500 fans, I bet they'd still sell it out.

Despite having only 730,000 people, Winnipeg is a far superior hockey market than a good 60% of the cities that presently have a team.

Exactly. The NHL royally screwed up expanding and relocating southward because they equated large population bases with large hockey markets -- Atlanta or Miami having a metro of 5 million doesn't mean jack shit if only 50,000 care about hockey.

And then there's Nashville and Raleigh...

[BoulderGrad]

Originally Posted by KingmanIII

Exactly. The NHL royally screwed up expanding and relocating southward because they equated large population bases with large hockey markets -- Atlanta or Miami having a metro of 5 million doesn't mean jack shit if only 50,000 care about hockey.

And then there's Nashville and Raleigh...

Not disputing that part. I'd venture a guess that any large Canadian city could easily support an NHL team (including Winnipeg). But the fact still remains that the NHL prefers to have stadiums of the ~18,000 seat range, especially for new teams.

Moves that should happen:
Phoenix -> Winnipeg
NY Islanders -> Seattle
Florida -> Hamilton
Nashville -> Kansas City