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Recent Local Columnist Tries to Slide in Some Mistruths About NHL Hockey in Winnipeg
"Arena not a panacea: MTS Centre proves sports facilities can’t fix neighbourhoods"
Bartley Kives 23/11/2009 Winnipeg Free Press
Have you ever tried to fix a car by baking banana muffins?
Faced with a flooded basement, would you consider solving the problem by reading Spider-Man comics?
Of course, you would do none of these things. You are a rational human being. If you’re capable of reading these words, you understand cause-and-effect relationships.
Drop an apple and it gets bruised. Pet a cat and it starts purring. But build an arena to revitalize downtown? That’s just crazy because the notion you can revitalize a blighted area by building an arena is illogical and naive.
Allow me to explain. Five years ago, Winnipeg’s agonizing arena debate ended with the opening of a 15,000-seat arena on Portage Avenue, crammed into the space where the dear, departed Eaton’s once stood.
Back in the 1980s, when the Edmonton Oilers were destroying the Winnipeg Jets every other night even though they had a coke habit the size of Grant Fuhr’s moustache,
Jets owner Barry Shenkarow tried and failed to warn the city’s power brokers we needed a new arena to keep the NHL here.
You know what happened next: Players’ salaries went up. Team revenues all but flatlined. The NHL outgrew the Winnipeg market and began its bizarre experiment in the American south.
The Jets stopped losing in Winnipeg and started losing in Phoenix.
Eventually, once the Manitoba Moose moved to town, co-owner Mark Chipman convinced investors and governments to help build the MTS Centre, which opened on Nov. 16, 2004.
Since then, the building has been an unqualified success. Pollstar magazine routinely lists the MTS Centre as one of the busiest venues in the continent. The Manitoba Moose play to average crowds of about 7,800, among the highest in the American Hockey League.
But the arena has not done a hell of a lot for Winnipeg’s underpopulated downtown. And to be frank, there was no way it could do anything in this regard.
The MTS Centre has sparked next to no activity outside its immediate footprint as well as the associated power-plant development that includes a Tavern United pub and CTV’s studios.
The Metropolitan Theatre to the east remains empty. The cityplace mall to the south is wanting for tenants. The north side of Portage Avenue still has mostly vacant buildings. The lone Fyxx coffee outlet that opened up to the west has since closed, though it has been replaced by a sushi joint.
This is no fault of the MTS Centre. Across North America, professional sporting facilities simply haven’t been fantastic drivers of inner-city revitalization
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Here was my public comment to the writer and all Manitobans:
"Jets owner Barry Shenkarow tried and failed to warn the city’s power brokers we needed a new arena to keep the NHL here.
You know what happened next: Players’ salaries went up. Team revenues all but flatlined. The NHL outgrew the Winnipeg market and began its bizarre experiment in the American south."
~~~
Bartley, history proved Barry right. If the MTSC was built in the 90's, then the NHL could have survived if not thrived in Winnipeg by now.
To say the NHL outgrew Winnipeg is just plain wrong and is pessimistic of our city's future. The NHL outgrew the old Arena and its' City landlord.
Regretably, Winnipeg decided against making the new entertainment complex a much-needed reality until years after the team left. But I'm glad the MTSC is a reality!
For those who still think that Winnipeg can't support the NHL, even at $50 million player salaries, check out these numbers!:
http://www.manitobamythbusters.com/php/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=343
A City landlord syphoned off most of the hockey and non-hockey revenue streams. Team revenues didn't "flatline", the team simply never received the bulk of the cash that it would now, having the MTSC to call home.
Looking back, as hard as it is to admit, I now don't blame a very cornered Barry Shenkarow at all for selling the team.
A single owner of the MTSC and an NHL team will retain all these revenues for the first time ever!
Chris
President, myNHLincludesWinnipeg.com
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