If you buy tickets online for a Carleton men’s hockey game at the Carleton Ice House, you might be assigned seats. But, outside of a playoff game or the home opener, nobody cares about an assigned seat because the Ice House is never full.
The Ice House has red plastic seats that sit up above the glass behind the players’ benches. There are heaters above the seats but they are never turned on. At the end of the concourse, there are two tables set up where fans can buy pop, chips, hot chocolate, coffee, hot dogs and domestic beer which will cost them $5.50.
Fans leave on winter coats, hats and gloves. Some have blankets on their knees to keep warm while taking in the action. The campus rink seats 500, but average attendance was 196 for 11 home games—minus the home opener and the annual rivalry game against the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees played at TD Place.
This is normal for most men’s university hockey programs around the country.
These programs have seen a tremendous rise in the quality of play. But, for the majority of players and coaches, looking up to half-empty stands is a reality.
While it has been referred to by some as the hidden gem of Canadian hockey, university hockey is on par with the lower professional ranks in North America, but no one is going to the games.
“You go to the Ice House or Minto Sports Complex (home of the University of Ottawa team) on any given night of the season and you’re watching a [ECHL] game for $8,” said Carlos Verde, a former broadcaster with the Carleton Ravens and former director of communications for the University of Ottawa men’s hockey program.
“You’re right up there with the players and you’re 10 feet from the ice for $8. Unfortunately, people just don’t know about it in this country.”
U Sports, the governing body for university sports in Canada, sees the problem too.
“Attendance and getting fans in the stands is always one of our big issues,” said Graham Brown, the president and CEO of U Sports.
“The biggest challenge you have with hockey is you’re competing with attention for other sports on campus, and students can only go to so many games.”
Ryan Medel played two seasons of U Sports hockey with the Carleton Ravens before joining them as an assistant coach and then becoming head coach at the University of Toronto. Medel said he recognized the challenges but added that there is room for growth.
“Universities have a number of different sports inside their institution that they have to look after. You look at cities where there is a professional team or a major junior team, and I think those are some big challenges,” Medel said. “There’s definitely room for growth, and I say this from being on the coaching side and being a former player, I think until you see seats full every night in rinks, you always hope and expect that interest and fan support will increase.”
The idea of seeing full arenas across the country every night for university hockey games may not be possible, although some schools do have strong attendance figures.
“We have averaged about 3,000 people per night for about 15 years,” said Tom Warden, the athletic director at Lakehead University.
Lakehead and Université de Québec à Trois Rivières (UQTR) are two schools that top the attendance charts of the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) conference annually because they are in special circumstances. Last year, they were number one and three in attendance with Lakehead at 2,084 and UQTR at 518.
The Lakehead Thunderwolves and the UQTR Patriotes are the highest level of hockey in their respective cities, and the high level of hockey keeps fans coming back.
“Just because you’re the only team in town doesn’t mean you’re going to have attendance,” Warden said. “When you have an educated hockey fan, you need them to think this is good hockey in order for them to come back.”
In Thunder Bay, Ont., a city with a population of 107,909, the options for watching hockey are the Thunder Bay North Stars—a junior A club—or Lakehead.
In Trois Riviéres, a city of 134,412, the Patriotes are the only high-level hockey team left after the Draveurs of the Ligue Nord-Américaine de Hockey (LNAH) folded after the 2017-18 season. Even before the Draveurs folded, UQTR was the team to watch for a real hockey game, as the LNAH is known for its violence and fights.
A fan told the Canadian University Sports Network in 2017: “If you want to watch a real hockey game, you come to watch the Pats. If you want to watch fights, go to the senior-league games.”
For the Atlantic University Sport (AUS) conference, a blend of competitive teams and good levels of community support hold up healthy attendance figures.
The University of New Brunswick (UNB) have four national championships in the last seven seasons and finished as the runner-up in 2015. The team plays in the Aitken University Centre located on the university’s campus and pulled an average of 2,450 fans per game this season, the highest in the country.
“Acadia, they have a nice little rink on campus that holds about 2,800 people and it does a good job of getting people from the Wolfville community,” Brown said. “Same thing at Saint Francis Xavier in Antigonish.”
For the majority of schools, though, the key relies on promoting one game or a series rather than trying to get fans in the seats for every single home game of the year.
The “over the top” games, as Brown likes to call them, are the most effective way of drawing attention to the product that is Canadian university men’s hockey.
Some 10,478 fans in Calgary flocked to see university hockey in the annual Crowchild Classic last January, which pits Mount Royal University against the University of Calgary at the Scotiabank Saddledome.
“What a lot of the programs are doing is cherry-picking a number of their games,” Brown said. “They try to focus all of their efforts on that to sell it out and they have been very successful.”
Victor Findlay, U Sports men’s hockey insider, weighed in and agreed the “over the tops” are the way to go.
“All those over-the-top events are all excellent examples of what this league can be,” Findlay said. “Maybe not on a day-to-day or nightly basis, but certainly every school, every hockey program can have some events like this throughout the season.”
Note: Attendance numbers were found through the Ontario University Athletics website, the University of New Brunswick Athletics website, and the Atlantic University Sport Conference website.
Image from files
