Is anyone down here taking notes?

OHL Hockey... coming back to this building

Congratulations to the city of North Bay Ontario, who learned today that they will be back in the OHL for the 2013-14 season as the Brampton Battalion will be packing their bags and moving 350 kms up the road to North Bay, who lost their first team, the Centennials, to Saginaw, Michigan in 2002.

As well, congratulations to the OHL for recognizing that the experiment in Brampton just wasn't working (and that's a 15 year experiment we're talking about... and I'd like to think it only lasted that long because that's the length of the lease the franchise signed with their arena, the Powerade Center) and allowing a town who will actually give a damn about the team to get another kick at the can (that doesn't take them off the hook for the brutal idea of allowing Mississauga to host the 2011 Memorial Cup, however). The Q went to Greater Montreal 7 times, seemingly forcing the issue to the point of exhaustion (they appear to have the right idea with the latest franchise - the Armada - in Blainville instead of the Bell Center). Junior teams in Edmonton, Winnipeg and Greater Toronto (Brampton will become the third OHL team to vacate GTA in five years) have all packed up and moved on at one time or another. The OHL made the best of a bad situation and allowed the franchise to move at the earliest possible opportunity - giving the North Bay ownership plenty of time to form a well thought out marketing strategy - and for that they should be commended.

Which brings me to my next point... one much closer to home. If one of the most lucrative junior leagues in the world can have the foresight to realize there are more lucrative solutions than always trying to inundate the league's largest market with their product, why can't the MHL do the same?

The MHL seem to have this bizarre obsession with making a team in Halifax Regional Municipality work. As a person that represents a team that in itself has a ton of both hockey and non-hockey competition, I can appreciate the struggle that the Metro Shipbuilders are going through. A team and it's representatives really have to get creative to make things work in HRM... and the entertainment competition is even stiffer there than in Greater Moncton.

Earlier this month, we saw the town of Digby embrace their role as host of the CJHL prospects game plus an exhibition game during the World Jr.A Challenge festivities. The arena was packed to see a team full of players with no particular attachment to the town (and vice-versa) play a level of hockey that smaller communities habitually identify closely with and whose franchises those towns covet.

Using Digby as an example, they have a rink that can hold roughly 1100-1200 fans, they would create a natural rivalry with both the Yarmouth Mariners and the Bridgewater Lumberjacks, they would be undoubtedly more tightly embraced by the community than the Shipbuilders are in HRM and they would increase the economic viability of the league as a whole. Frankly, it could only be an improvement from the unfortunate situation facing the Metro at this time.

It doesn't necessarily have to be Digby, either. Barrington has been used as a neutral site for MHL games in the past. Port Hawksbury has possibly the most state of the art arena in the region. This area is not prohibited by any particular lack of attractive alternate venues that could increase the profile of one of it's communities as well as better line the league's coffers.

That is, of course, if they're open to suggestions...