I'm glad to see the good attendance numbers! It's never good when a team has to move to relocate.
However, I'm confused as to why the Kootenay Ice are in the Eastern Conference. This causes an imbalance of teams in the league, 10 in one conference, 12 in another. This makes no logical sense. Can anyone explain why this is?
I'll attempt to answer this (though I'm not positive of the details, so if anyone wants to correct me, please feel free)....
The Kootenay Ice franchise started out as the Edmonton Ice in 1996 and was part of the Central division. In 1998 they moved to Cranbrook and stayed in the Central division. In 2001 the league added the Vancouver Giants, and realigned the conferences/divisions, putting the Ice in the Western conference (Eastern Conference with 10 teams, Western with 9). By my understanding, the Ice received a commitment from the league that in the future, when they added more teams to the Western Conference that they ice would be allowed to move back to the East (which had closer geographic rivalries and lower travel costs). The Everett Silvertips were added in 2003 and the Chilliwack Bruins in 2005 which allowed the league to realign and put the Ice back in the Eastern Conference for the 2006/2007 season, giving the Eastern Conference 11 teams and the Western Conference 10 teams. The Edmonton Oil Kings were added the following year, and when added to the Eastern Conference resulted in the 12 East / 10 West that we still have today (though since then Chilliwack moved to Victoria).
I would guess the Ice would (if given the option) choose to stay in the Eastern Conference, as travel to Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, Calgary & Red Deer are all closer then the closest BC division team (Kelowna).
One side note to this, is that the Ice have banners up showing they were "Eastern Conference Champions" in 1999/2000, "Western Conference Champions" in 2001/2002, and "Eastern Conference Champions" in 2010/2011. I'm guessing that no other team in the future will ever been both Eastern and Western Conference Champions of the WHL.