[Matty81]

I don't mind it as long as it's just an imbalanced schedule rather than not playing the teams in the other conference at all. Can't see it saving a ton of money though? you still need to pay for hotels, food, etc, just get a slightly cheaper airfare. I guess for the teams in the east they can probably train or bus home after their games but the western teams still have massive travel especially if Winnipeg gets forced on them, can't imagine anybody wants them in their conference.

I'd be so happy to see Kelowna get a team here, but I hope whoever is setting it up is in it for the long haul. The stadium is the most important thing as there is nothing here at all suitable right now, and you will absolutely need a roof in the summer when it's 35-40 degrees every day in July-August or people simply won't go.

Think it will take a big marketing effort and 4-5 seasons to build up to 3-4k attendance a game. It's the fastest growing city in Canada in the last census and the demographic has shifted dramatically with a lot of newcomers to Canada and transplants from Vancouver changing the flavor a ton in the last 5 years, but there are still a lot of 80s CDN families here who are locked in on hockey and CFL and have that scorn of soccer TSN and the HNIC crew created in that era relative to most other places in Canada.

Could see it drawing closer to 2k in the first season, and they'll need to run a couple coaches from Vernon and Penticton a game to make sure they are drawing from the full 400k-ish in the valley rather than just the 250k in Kelowna. Okanagan branding rather than Kelowna would make sense.