Quote:
Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist
It goes beyond just professional hockey. I was at a Bantam House tournament for my son in Chilliwack and spent some time talking to parents from Chilliwack and Abbotsford. Hardly any of the Chilliwack patents had heard of the Heat, and of the Abbotsford parents, only a handful of them had been to a great game. They all told me playing hockey or even watching just isn't a big activity there. Lots and lots of sports, but hockey isn't king like it is elsewhere.
Case in point:
Chilliwack Bruins Minor Hockey serves approximately 100K people and only had 2 Rep and 6 house teams.
Kamloops Minor hockey has 3 Rep and 10 house teams.
By Midget the disparity is even bigger. They would need a serious grassroots movement for hockey to catch on in the lower mainland outside of the major hubs
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I'd agree with this... While there are some really strong minor hockey programs here, enrollment does not seem to be that high, especially when you compare to soccer (seasons run in parallel).
For Canadian market with almost 3 million people in the region, there are not that many hard core hockey fans per capita as you'd find elsewhere.