DoyleG
Reality sucks, Princesses!
Washington State could put two bids in (Seattle/Everett, Spokane/Tri-Cities) if they wanted to. They support junior hockey, no college hockey issues, and close to Canadian supporters.
Of course they can. It's an international tournament so needs a variety of hosts.
Attendance is high in Canada. However, while it's embarrassing for the country, Edmonton can't even sell out the Canada games.
how many big arenas do maine have? Lewiston and ?
The putting it in a bigger city comes from bigger arena availablilty
Are most of us forgetting that you need 2 large areas within reasonable driving distance of each other?
There was talk of Pittsburgh getting it, but the next largest arena is that of Robert Morris NCAA D1. Problem is that it only can hold 1200 people.
Even the ECHL rinks of Wheeling and Johnstown are too small. It would probably be needed to be Pittsburgh/Hershey since the Giant Center can hold 10,000 fans.
The secondary rink in Buffalo, Niagara University's rink, only held a little over 1,000 I believe so that wouldn't be an issue. As long as the main arena is large enough.
I'm not sure why people are hating on the idea of a southern market hosting it. Would people go to Slovakia v.s. Latvia? Probably not, but attendance would probably still be better than anywhere in Europe. Americans love college sports almost if not more than professional sports which is unparallelled anywhere else in the world - there is a lot of potential for the World Juniors here.
Besides, you can't confine the World Juniors to Canada and American border towns forever. Unless they change the name to the "Canada and sometimes America Juniors".
But unfortunately money talks, and that's probably the future of this tournament. USA Hockey will never hold it very far from the border because they want to make as much money as possible, and the IIHF as well will probably announce shortly that it will be held in Canada every year.
It depends if you want it to be a huge success you really have to hold it near the boarder if you don't want it to be a huge success then sure you could hold it else where.
If by "huge success" you mean make a ton of money for USA Hockey and the IIHF then sure I agree.
But I'm a fan, not USAH or the IIHF. As long as the US games have good attendance - with AMERICAN fans, it would be a success to me.
Buffalo may have made money, but to me it was a joke. I don't see the point in holding it in the US at all if you hold it in a border town that will just be invaded by Canadians. Just give it to Canada in the first place.
For the non-US games of course. I would still expect the American games to be sold out for it to be a success in my eyes.
I'm a pretty big hockey fan and even I don't care about Latvia v.s. Slovakia. There's no shame in small crowds for games not involving the home team. Canadians are the exception, not the rule when it comes to interest in an uninteresting low profile matchup.
Yeah, we're worried about our stature as a hockey nation. How many have "your boys" won...anywhere?
For it to be a big success there would have to be good support for other games just selling out American games would not be a success if you selll out of those games but have less then 10,000 for all other games that would not be a success.
... says who?
Niagara University's rink sits 2,000 people. So I guess Buffalo wasn't a success then.
I don't understand why how many people show up to a Slovakia v.s. Latvia game in a completely different country has anything to do with a tournament being a success or not.
And 10,000 is just plain ridiculous. The entire country of Slovakia doesn't even have a SINGLE arena that holds that many people. And guess what, they hosted the World Championships this year. I doubt you'll find anyone who said they weren't a success either. But you don't want Slovakia to ever hold a hockey tournament?
At least explain your ridiculous claims.