IIHF president points to ‘geopolitical situation’ for world junior attendance struggles

St. Paul, Minn. — Disappointing attendance was the hot-button topic when IIHF president Luc Tardiff and USA Hockey’s executive director Pat Kelleher spoke to the media at the world junior championship’s closing press conference on Monday afternoon at Grand Casino Arena.

At similar end-of-tournament addresses for the world juniors, the messaging from executives and organizers typically includes praise for the atmosphere in its host venues. This was certainly the case last year in Ottawa, when the city drew the eighth-highest total attendance in world juniors history.

Kelleher made no such mention of the atmosphere at this year’s tournament in his prepared remarks, which did include a tip of the hat to the host cities, the Minnesota Wild, the University of Minnesota and the organizing committees.

When asked about the sparse crowds, Tardif was quick to mention that numbers in an 18,000-capacity NHL venue like Grand Casino Arena would appear larger in the smaller European rinks that have hosted the world juniors.

“The Wild give us a fantastic arena, and sometimes you get good crowds, but you can see some empty seats,” Tardif said. “We’re satisfied. And we’re satisfied also about the quality of the infrastructure.”

Tardif also took the opportunity to blame U.S.-Canada political tensions for the smaller-than-expected crowds from north of the border, which were expected to buoy attendance at 3M Arena at Mariucci in Minneapolis while U.S. fans kept Grand Casino Arena full over in St. Paul.

“It’s winter time, it’s cold, and we cannot forget the geopolitical situation makes it not so easy,” he said. “I think you understand what I want to say (and) I don’t want to go further, but that was important.”

Based on the outcome of last year’s tournament, Canada was originally seeded to play in the same group as the U.S. at Grand Casino Arena, but USA Hockey opted to move Canada to the 3M Arena at Mariucci. Although crowds were especially small there, Kelleher defended the decision.

“Our plan was to have Canada anchor the Mariucci bracket, and I think there were a lot of factors that went into the challenge,” he said. “But we feel comfortable with that decision and thought it was where we needed to go. First and foremost, though, we said we were going to rely on American fans and hope for some visitors to augment that.”

The U.S. averaged more than 14,000 fans for each of its five games, the last of which was a 4-3 overtime loss to Finland in the quarterfinals. That mark was far below the 18,000-plus that Canada drew in its games last year at Canadian Tire Centre, home of the Ottawa Senators.

Petr Briza, IIHF senior vice-president, defended the tournament’s subpar semifinal crowds — both just over 7,200 — after the U.S. was eliminated by Finland in the quarterfinals.

“This is an organizer’s nightmare — that your own team is eliminated in a quarterfinal — because you put such energy and effort into it, and then the atmosphere and the feelings and emotions go down,” Briza said.

However, Kelleher said numbers were “where they needed to be,” and Tarif added that attendance still outperformed the last European-hosted tournament in Gothenburg, Sweden. It also bested the last U.S.-based tournament in Buffalo, which averaged less than 13,000 fans for American games.

RECOMMENDED VIDEO

“They call it the State of Hockey for a reason, and I think the atmosphere that they put on here was incredible,” Kelleher said. “We’ll end up having over 200,000 fans that came through the buildings, which was a goal for our organizing committee. Minnesotans love hockey, maybe more than any place else in our country, and I think they did a great job of showing that and supporting all the teams here.”

USA Hockey will host its next world juniors in 2031, and Kelleher said he expects “newer” NHL markets to be interested. The bidding process won’t open until years from now, but many have suggested Detroit as an ideal host with its proximity to the Canadian border.

“Certainly in some games, you’d like to see a little bit bigger in some of the crowds, because the play is so good and the players deserve that,” Kelleher said. “But we’re happy with it.”

Tardiff addresses Olympic arena situation

With the start of the men’s and women’s Olympic hockey tournaments just over a month away, construction progress on the Milano Santagiulia arena is a hot-button topic.

Tardif wouldn’t guarantee that the arena will be fully ready for the start of the competition on Feb. 11, but he did say that the tournament will be played there.

“We’re going to have a tournament in this building,” Tardif said. “So that’s the infrastructure for ice hockey — I’m talking about the dressing rooms, the practice area and the field of play — that’s going to be ready. We can be confident that they’re not going to go to Milan for nothing.”

Tardif said he and other leaders, including Hockey Canada’s Scott Salmond, will travel to Milan from the world juniors in Minnesota on Tuesday to observe the planned test event, scheduled for Jan. 9. Once that event is in the books, he said, he’ll be in a better position to give a more definite update on the rest of the building’s amenities, such as the concessions and concourses.

“The (test event) will be not exactly what I expected … but it will be a nice setup for the Olympic games,” Tardif said. “I’m confident about the quality of the infrastructure.”