Quote:
Originally Posted by Tsawwassen
Completely opposite opinion, it's a disadvantage to have the tournament in 1 city.
It's a presitige event and a bigger deal when the games are across the country/continent. Tickets sell out just as fast.
All star games and drafts are 2-4 day events maximum. Having a 2 week event, various clubs would like to share in that.
The reason the PA had travel concerns last time round was the games were on 2 different continents, North America and Europe. Travel on 1 continent is not an issue with the PA.
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When you look at the 2004 event, only two out of four games sold out in Minnesota (and none of the games went to the standing room max of 18,664). Only three of the five games in TORONTO sold out. Both games in Montreal sold out. I went to all four Minnesota games. It was $30 a ticket.
Contrast that with the World Juniors where the Calgary/Edmonton event sold out in, what, 12 seconds? The Toronto/Montreal event sold out in a matter of hours.
This is a tournament with best-on-best NHL stars. It should sell out in seconds and I think if you limited it to one or two teams/cities they would be able to put their marketing muscle behind it like Calgary/Edmonton did at the World Juniors and sell it out instantly.
The World Juniors are bigger than the World Cup and it shouldn't be that way. A big reason I think is the prestige of hosting the tournament (and the TSN hype machine, of course).