What happened to all those fans who apparently couldn’t wait for the Western Hockey League to return to Victoria?
The sea of blue this season at Victoria Royals games has been glaring and leaving team officials blue. That’s not in reference to the colour of the club’s uniforms, but the hue of the seats, which haven’t had many butts in them this season.
The Royals, in their third season in Victoria, are averaging an announced attendance of 4,086 fans per game this season in the 7,006-capacity Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre. That puts them 10th in the league in average attendance. That’s down dramatically from a WHL eighth-best 5,189 average in 2012-13 and league seventh-best 5,660 in 2011-12.
A glut of early-season Royals home games hasn’t helped, notes Dave Dakers, president of sports and entertainment for RG Properties, the Vancouver-based company that owns the Victoria WHL franchise.
“Our schedule this season was very difficult in terms of marketing,” said Dakers, who is the director of the Royals.
“We have so many issues around our schedule this season that have been tricky to navigate. We try to avoid it [too many early-season home games], but it happened to us this season. We’ve had about 50 per cent more home games over the first six weeks than we did last season. It’s an unfortunate scenario. But things will definitely pick up.”
Up to the two-game set Friday and Saturday against the Seattle Thunderbirds, the Royals will have played 15 home games in the first eight weeks of the season. They played 10 home games over that same stretch last season.
Yet, the Royals’ attendance woes appear to be part of a wider WHL trend as attendance is down seven per cent across the league this season from this time last season.
“We’ve had a slower start than anticipated,” said league commissioner Ron Robison, in a telephone interview from WHL headquarters in Calgary. “We’re a little behind where we thought we would be by now.”
But Robison is hoping for a boffo box-office close to the season.
“We are concerned but quite confident,” he said.
“It’s the same pattern as last year, when we finished stronger at the end of the season than when we started.”
Neither Robison or Dakers could see anything particular in the economy that could account for this season’s drop in attendance.
“I believe we are going to experience a rebound when we get into the more traditional time for hockey,” Robison said. “It takes a while. Interest in hockey increases as the season progresses. And we are going to see more promotional activities at the games.”
WHL attendance this season is averaging 4,020, ranging from the league-best Calgary Hitmen at 7,258 to the league-worst Prince George Cougars at 1,612.
Despite its early-season troubles at the gate, the WHL still leads the three major-junior leagues in attendance. The Ontario Hockey League is averaging 3,827 fans per game and the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League 3,183.
