Quote:
Originally Posted by Weitz
I think the biggest pitfall is hockey fans don't find the woman game appealing. Its very different than high level mens hockey.
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This is it right here, everyone wants to dance around it to not be sexist but quite frankly they draw the level of attendance relative to their quality of hockey. In Calgary that means the following teams should theoretically always outdraw them:
-Flames
-Hitmen
-UofC dinos / Mount Royal Cougars
-Calgary Canucks / Calgary Mustangs
-Calgary Midget AAA Flames / Buffalos / Northstars / Royals
-Calgary Inferno
Asking fans to show up for Woman's professional games is basically asking them to come out for primarily non-hockey reasons because there's an oversupply of superior hockey product in most markets(interest in supporting woman's sport, bringing out girls who are interested because it's woman's sport, etc.) As a generic hockey fan I only have so much time to follow and attend Flames games and then maybe get to the odd Hitmen game. If my time was unlimited there would still be like 6-8 teams I would rather see ahead of the Inferno.
The rationale for funding this league is completely non-commercial (Promotion of woman's sport and providing development opportunities for the women's Olympic teams) and always will be sub-commercial, and as such I think people shouldn't be looking so much to the NHL but rather Hockey Canada / Hockey USA to ante up for this cause.