TY Whalers Fan for the in person report. I take it you were once a Plmouth Whalers season ticket holder? Can you please explain the difference between the USHL/NCAA style of hockey to that of the OHL and what style do you prefer more?
Yes, I was a long time Plymouth Whalers season ticket holder. We were sad to see the Whalers leave, but are grateful that the arena was sold to USA Hockey instead of being bulldozed for a commercial development.
The OHL was quite a bit different of an experience than the US NTDP. With the OHL, we would see future star players coming to town from the opposing team -- players like McDavid, Stamkos, Tavares, Hall, Patrick Kane, etc. We do not see that caliber of player on the USHL opponents. There was a full four round seven game series playoff schedule, too, and playoff hockey is so much fun to watch. We don't really get that with the NTDP. They did make the playoffs last season, but that's not very common and there is almost no chance we will see them win a USHL title -- last season was the first time the program won a single USHL playoff game. With the Whalers, they qualified for the post season every year except that horrible final lame duck season. If you are a fan of hockey fights, those occur in the OHL but not with the NTDP -- the program does not allow their players to fight, even though the USHL does allow it. The NTDP's primary purpose is to prepare players for international competition, where fighting is not allowed.
From the home team perspective, we got to see some great players with the Whalers (Tyler Seguin, James Neal, Rickard Rakell, Vince Trocheck, Tom Wilson, etc.), but we also get that with the NTDP (Jack Hughes, Clayton Keller, etc.). We get a variety of different types of competition -- USHL, NCAA and the arena usually hosts an international tournament each season. That can be both good and bad -- it's sometimes hard to remember the variances in the rules between the three, as the NTDP plays by the rules of their opponent's affiliation. Things such as overtime rules, delay of game, etc. change depending on the opponent.
One of things I miss the most is the crowds. The Whalers drew much better than the NTDP, with average attendance of around 3,000. With the NTDP, crowds are in the 700 - 1,500 range, except for a few special occasions -- we had about 3,800 for the game versus the University of Michigan last season, 3,400 for the Michigan State game, and international games against Russia have drawn 2,000+. We would get a lot of opposing fans for Whalers games, especially from Windsor, Saginaw, London, Kitchener and Sault Ste Marie (for some reason the Sarnia fans didn't seem to travel as much). About the only opposing team fans we get now are family/friends of players -- I did have Teemu Selanne sitting next to me last year watching his son.
We still enjoy going to the games, though, and the quality of hockey is very good. The program treats us well, too.