Thumbing through a few old files the other day, I uncovered a story published on Jan. 31, 2003 (imagine, 16 years ago), a St. John’s Maple Leafs yarn and their win over the Lowell Lock Monsters.
It was a Thursday night American Hockey League game at Mile One Centre, and Josh Holden won it for St. John’s in overtime.
But that’s not the reason why I bring this up.
Rather, that particular game was noteworthy in that it was Harold Druken’s first time playing at home since he was a rookie pro with the Syracuse Crunch in 1999-2000.
And yet it drew just 4,399 fans.
Attendance at Mile One Centre, as it pertains to hockey, is a hot button topic these days, and not because the Newfoundland Growlers, the expansion team in the ECHL, are filling the rink.
The Growlers this season averaged 3,784 fans, 600-odd fewer than the league average of 4,445.
That’s a far cry from the four years of the IceCaps franchise under the Winnipeg Jets banner — AHL, Part II — when St. John’s routinely drew sellout audiences.
It tapered off a bit in 2015-16 when the Montreal Canadiens were the parent club, and attendance dropped even more the next winter when the IceCaps were a lameduck franchise after Montreal had announced plans prior to the start of the year it was moving the farmhands to Laval, Que.
For the Growlers’ most recent game at Mile One, Game 3 of the second-round playoff series against the Manchester Monarchs, 3,836 came out on a Saturday night to watch the Newfoundland team grab a 2-1 series lead.
It’s led to some social media wags to suggest that if attendance doesn’t improve, the Growlers may run away before they’ve had a chance to settle in their Pound.
The apparent apathy surrounding the team is quite surprising, considering the ECHL — a AA brand of hockey to the AAA AHL — is the best brand of hockey we’ll ever see again at Mile One.
There are a million excuses, of course, but one valid reason for the low attendance has to do with the Growlers’ schedule, hardly favourable given the team’s late entry into the league.
Twice this season — in February and March — Newfoundland has played seven games in 10 nights, 30 per cent of the team’s schedule in 20 days.
What is maddening to hear is the hockey just isn’t any good.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
From this press box perch, here’s our take:
ECHL players are noticeably smaller than their AHL kin, though that’s perhaps a sign of the times, now that hockey has finally opened its doors to players under six-feet.
The game may be a little more — what’s the word? — scrambly than the AHL. My wife, who once thought Canada was playing Korea years ago when Paul Kariya was donning the maple leaf (true story), might have summed it up best when she suggested it was a little more “raw” in comparison to the AHL.
In the ECHL, you’re apt to see more turnovers and more odd-man rushes. The passes aren’t always as crisp, though the pace of play is comparable.
And that, in my books, makes for a more entertaining game.
Mistakes equal excitement, and the ECHL one-ups the AHL, a facsimile of the robotic NHL game that’s been choked to death with coaches enamoured with systems and carbon-copy power plays.
Systems are in place in the ECHL, too, but is this league, breakdowns are not a rare occurrence, hence more scoring plays.
Agreed, the AHL had a certain number of ‘name’ players — former top draft picks, world junior guys and perhaps a player or two on the downswing of an NHL career (though they’re getting fewer).
In that regard, ECHL rosters leave most fans clicking hockeydb.com, but let’s not hear that excuse either, please.
With all due respects to the NBL of Canada, in terms of pro basketball, it doesn’t get much lower than this circuit.
But most folks who take in a game in St. John’s believe it’s the best thing since sliced bread, despite virtually every ball player, with the exception of Carl English and maybe Glen Davis, is an unknown.
But the NBL Canada has speed and it has skill. And it’s entertaining.
Just like the ECHL.
Too bad more hockey fans haven’t bothered to find out first-hand.
Robin Short is The Telegram’s Sports Editor. He can be reached by email [email protected] Follow him on Twitter @TelyRobinShort
