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Post by WpgJets2008 on Apr 9, 2009 13:50:52 GMT -5
Quebec City Kicks Some Tires Mar 31, 2009 The Offside Blog has learned that a Quebec City group is talking about a new arena to replace the aged Colisee. About 5 people are making the trek to rinks in Montreal, Winnipeg, Denver and others to talk about each city’s rink and how it serves their needs. Their hope is to learn how to apply that knowledge back to Quebec City's own needs.
While the Quebec City concept includes a 20,000 seat arena, it does seem that the concept is still very much preliminary and open to change. Dialogue between the folks at the MTS Centre got those from Quebec thinking about seating capacity and market scarcity concerns. True North Sports and Entertainment officials revealed their thoughts about arena seating strategies. True North explained that the last couple of thousand seats are the most expensive to build, sell for the least money for each event and go most often unsold when events do not sellout. Should NHL seats go unsold, there is not as much urgency for fans to buy season tickets. However with near constant sellouts season ticket holders and concert goers rush to buy tickets. NHL Season tickets then have strong value. The Quebec group was quoted as taking these points to heart and potentially dropping 2,000 or more seats from their plan. Clearly bigger isn’t better as those larger, half empty rinks and NHL ticket promos in the US can atest. So as of yet no arena plan is finalized, much less the firm financial commitments to construct. But it is positive for Nordiques fans that Quebec City has launched this recent effort. . .Catch the entire blog here: manitobamythbusters.com/blog/blog4.php/2009/03/31/quebec-city-kicks-some-tires-mar-31-2009
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Post by Kenny S on Apr 9, 2009 16:04:41 GMT -5
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Post by jhendrix70 on Apr 9, 2009 16:09:58 GMT -5
God! That loser just won't quit will he.......
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Post by omnimaga on Apr 10, 2009 0:47:09 GMT -5
Actually this group announced their project around October 2008 and it has been talked about a lot at that time. In February they showed some drawings of what the arena could look like too and now they got a website. They are actually the only credible group who ever ran a new Quebec Arena project in the past years. Mark Charest project (Nordik Center), which has been running for 4 years, seemed more like blabbing than anything else, and we hardly ever heard news about them. They got a return of the quebec nordiques forums online and they haven't been approving new member registrations for 2 years (there were spambot issues so the admin enabled admin approval, but he never even bothers to check the pending queue), so it's pretty much dead. Last fall it even went close to shutting down. Mark Charest group, as well as like 2 or 3 others that appeared in the past years, talked about potential investors every 6 months or so, but never said much more. On top of that Mark Charest plan is to build the new rink in the middle of nowhere. Mario Bedard project is really the only credible group that showed up so far, plus their plans is to build the rink where the horse racing track and building is located then when finished the old one is demolished and replaced with additional parking slots.
Unfortunately, no matter how credible they are, I am unsure if they will ever be able to get that much money from pre-sold seats. First, there are not a lot of rich people in Quebec, so few people are gonna be able to afford buying seats. However, the monthly payments plans and the fact that Quebec city hockey fans will put hockey as a priority over anything else, even if it means cutting on every other things such as going to theater, shows or even on some less essential food, would have helped. However, currently, the economy in USA is in shambles and even thought Quebec city hasn't been affected as much as anywhere else like Montreal, everyone are being very careful to what they do with their money in case, so they will not go shell away $1500-5000 on a seat with no guarantee that a NHL team will return. There are also some people who are totally against contributing that much money into an arena project, simply because Montreal Canadiens fans didn't have to do so when the Bell Center was built and they received a huge contribution from governments to build it so they think it should work the same way with Quebec. I personally thought about buying a upper bowl one, but I am saving the entire money somewhere safe first because my finances are tight and we never know what can happen.
Currently, they sold 1370 seats and 1000 of them were sold the first month. In the next 5 months they sold a little over 300 (2 of which was bought by one of the Colorado Avalanche owners) and their deadline for selling 5000 is October 2009. Else, they cancel the entire project. So this doesn't look good. Unfortunately, they update the seat sales figures about every two months now so maybe they sold a lot more since the people who run the project went to the MTS and Pepsi Center. Also, when Mario Bedard first announced this project, it was clearly stated that it was not specifically to bring back NHL. It was mainly to attract big music bands and artists and host the QMJHL Quebec Remparts. However, this was a mistake because everyone wants a new building just for the NHL. I can count on my first hand how many times the current 15K seat rink sold out in a year for a show. As I said, people there are generally not rich, plus it's a smaller market than Winnipeg. However, they're die hard hockey fan so they'll put money on hockey instead of shows. So in March, Mario Bedard started bringning NHL up more and more in the new arena discussion.
The project is now for a 18000 seats arena too. The problem is that whenever NHL return is brought up in Quebec news, they use Montreal 21000 seat arena as an universal standard for a future arena project. This changed after they visited other arenas because a lot of arenas in the NHL don't even seat 18000 and most are filled at 70-80% capacity. I personally thought 20000 was way too much. Quebec city may be filled with die hard hockey fans who will support their team even when it finishes last 3 seasons in a row (when going to a Remparts game last fall there's even a hobo who asked me if I had tickets for cheap), but it's still not much bigger than Winnipeg and most people earn under $30000 a year. Due to the overtaxing there, even if the building would be privately owned, 15000 seats wouldn't be enough, unlike in Winnipeg. 16000-18000 should be enough I think.
I hope they can convince people to buy seats so they reach the 5K mark by October, so there will be more hope afterward. Now they no longer need as much as $50 millions I think, since the arena would be much smaller.
As for if it works out, they said that a new NHL team could play maybe 1 or 2 season in the old arena until the new one is done. It holds 15399 seats. The Colorado Avalanche played 3 years in an old 16000 seats arena with no luxury boxes before the Pepsi Center was built. Ottawa Senators first rink didn't even have 10000 if I remember. The only problem that could arise is that they would need to schedule all their pre-season games and conference/stanley cup final games duing evening when it's colder outside.
However, it's certain that Winnipeg will get a new NHL team before anyone else, no matter what. You got a NHL ready rink and die hard hockey fans ready to sell it out, plus more corporate support. Quebec has the fans too, but no suitable facility to permanently host a NHL team. On top of that if there are any potential investors when we're ready, he will most likely buy the Habs instead...
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Post by rainmanrh on Apr 10, 2009 15:41:48 GMT -5
Don’t worry DJ, despite what Bettman is saying publically, I personally think that the numbers speak for them selves and the love affair with the southern US is over. Winnipeg and Quebec city will be high up on the pecking order when the relocation of failing teams begins.
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Post by jhendrix70 on Apr 10, 2009 16:47:11 GMT -5
Winnipeg's #1......
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Post by omnimaga on Apr 10, 2009 17:29:48 GMT -5
Yup. In fact, in Quebec Newspapers I always heard in the past 6 years that Winnipeg could support a NHL franchise again, even before the lockout (altough it was obviously less frequent at that time, considering even the Senators had financial issues). It's always considered as the #1 city that should get a NHL team again. In other cases, I heard about Las Vegas, but Bettman recently said he isn,t planning to relocate any team there in the near future because they need a new arena. I do hope he won't do something stupid again like allowing the Habs to relocate out of Montreal or move a team in Kansas City where they'll sell 2000 season tickets per season. If he ever moves another canadian team out of Canada once again, I think the only solution to get more hockey teams of NHL-like caliber in Canada will be to restart the WHA and try to get some of the Canadian teams that are in small markets as well as the working small market teams in USA to switch leagues to prevent them from moving in the Sun Belt.
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Post by allthisgold on Apr 11, 2009 23:35:25 GMT -5
Wow. I would love a Jets vs. Nordiques game. Good luck to you guys in Quebec.
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Post by gee on Apr 11, 2009 23:47:54 GMT -5
wasn't the bell centre privately financed - which is partly why molson wanted out (another problem being that they paid 8 million per year in property taxes)
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Post by omnimaga on May 29, 2009 18:04:14 GMT -5
From the arena project site, licenses for luxury boxes/suites are sold out. The group has pretty much only focussed on luxury boxes license sales since February 6th. They said once all $25000 licenses were sold they would start focussing more on individual seats sales now. There were 70 boxes licenses for sale, as they wanted at least some to not have licenses (so it's easier for people or companies who didn't want to buy seats/boxes rights to still be able to attend shows and events.
So far, 1447 seats licenses were sold (1400-ish yesterday) out of 5000. 5000 is the new objective instead of the former 10000, since the arena capacity got reduced from 20014 seats to 18014. They still plan to complete the project for 2014 and think that if another team besides Phoenix gets on the move within the next two or three years (he isn't planning to try bringning the Coyotes in Quebec, as he thinks they will have moved long before), they could still have a chance to acquire it, providing Gary Bettman won't block such move and that the shovels started to hit the ground by then. The team would do the same thing than Colorado Avalanche did: they would play 2 or 3 years in the old 15399 seats arena until the new one is built.
The estimation of the new cost for such arena has been reduced from $300 millions to $246.7 millions, due to the max capacity having been reduced by 2000.
Indivisual seat sales started stagnating around December/January. THe first 3 weeks after the project started, about 1000 seats licenses were sold, but afterward, sales eventually dropped to about 1 seat a day. However, after a conference yesterday, sales went from a bit under 1400 to 1447. From now on, most efforts that were put into suite sales will be put on individual seats sales.
As for potential investors, so far there's Red Bull and Alexander Medvedev (who runs the KHL in Russia). However, despite Medvedev having shown interest in bringning back a NHL team specifically in Quebec city, Mario bedard doesn't think the KHL owner would be able to buy a NHL franchise, given his bad reputation among the NHL (due to his league stealing NHL players), the fact he alerady got an entire league to run and the fact this new league has financial problems and teams are folding. Red Bull seemed a bit interested, but so far both parties didn't want to share information. Red Bull runs the Red Bull Crashed Ice competion accross the world in various cities, such as Quebec, since the past few years.
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Post by jaylon1970 on May 29, 2009 22:05:48 GMT -5
From the arena project site, licenses for luxury boxes/suites are sold out. The group has pretty much only focussed on luxury boxes license sales since February 6th. They said once all $25000 licenses were sold they would start focussing more on individual seats sales now. There were 70 boxes licenses for sale, as they wanted at least some to not have licenses (so it's easier for people or companies who didn't want to buy seats/boxes rights to still be able to attend shows and events. So far, 1447 seats licenses were sold (1400-ish yesterday) out of 5000. 5000 is the new objective instead of the former 10000, since the arena capacity got reduced from 20014 seats to 18014. They still plan to complete the project for 2014 and think that if another team besides Phoenix gets on the move within the next two or three years (he isn't planning to try bringning the Coyotes in Quebec, as he thinks they will have moved long before), they could still have a chance to acquire it, providing Gary Bettman won't block such move and that the shovels started to hit the ground by then. The team would do the same thing than Colorado Avalanche did: they would play 2 or 3 years in the old 15399 seats arena until the new one is built. The estimation of the new cost for such arena has been reduced from $300 millions to $246.7 millions, due to the max capacity having been reduced by 2000. Indivisual seat sales started stagnating around December/January. THe first 3 weeks after the project started, about 1000 seats licenses were sold, but afterward, sales eventually dropped to about 1 seat a day. However, after a conference yesterday, sales went from a bit under 1400 to 1447. From now on, most efforts that were put into suite sales will be put on individual seats sales. As for potential investors, so far there's Red Bull and Alexander Medvedev (who runs the KHL in Russia). However, despite Medvedev having shown interest in bringning back a NHL team specifically in Quebec city, Mario bedard doesn't think the KHL owner would be able to buy a NHL franchise, given his bad reputation among the NHL (due to his league stealing NHL players), the fact he alerady got an entire league to run and the fact this new league has financial problems and teams are folding. Red Bull seemed a bit interested, but so far both parties didn't want to share information. Red Bull runs the Red Bull Crashed Ice competion accross the world in various cities, such as Quebec, since the past few years. do you think the project might need help on a provincial level?
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Post by mrconfusion87 on May 30, 2009 1:47:01 GMT -5
I'm open to seeing QC and Hamilton back, but AFTER Winnipeg gets it... It'd be cool to see 9 teams in Canada twenty years from now!
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dev
Veteran Member
Posts: 109
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Post by dev on May 30, 2009 5:38:52 GMT -5
Hopefully we see more teams back in Canada and quicker than 20 years. Winnipeg 1st and then the "Return of the Nordiques"
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Post by scottie65 on May 30, 2009 11:32:57 GMT -5
I really would like to see QC start a grassroots campaign that gets the ball rolling for them. In my opinion they should be ahead of Hamilton, but without an Arena its hard to be a credible option.
It is my honest belief that without this ROTJ forum - we wouldn't be the front runner for an NHL franchise. It has got many people motivated and most importantly laid to rest all of the negatives through the research posted on this site.
So, QC, find out what your negatives are and start the process of eliminating them like the ROTJ supporters have - I want to go to a Jets-Nordiques game again.
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Post by omnimaga on May 31, 2009 15:25:29 GMT -5
So far the arena project owners are saying they will ask for government financial help on the 3 levels (city, province and federal). If Quebec city keeps the same mayor until all 5000 seats licenses are done, it's certain the city will contribute (I wouldn't be surprised if money from the 400th anniversary profits was used), the provincial governement help is not official, but he promised at least 50 millions. On the federal side I have some doubts, though, because when Quebec tried to ask help for a CFL stadium project last summer the federal government clearly stated they would never contribute any money for professional sports. Again, it might be hard to get help on both provincial and federal sides anyway, because of the Caisse De Depot fiasco and the canadian economy. The good news is that the group will still contribute as much money for the 18014 seats project as they would have done for a 20014 seats one, to make sure as less public financial help as possible is needed. A team would be completly privately financed. In Quebec city it would probably work pretty well. I don't think they would sell out entire seasons, but they would get pretty close. The only problem a team would get I think is players refusing to play for the team because almost everything in Quebec city is in french, not english (altough since the past few years, speaking english well is a requirement in almost every job there), so there could be a few more incidents like this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_h3No7CUbNIAltough with the economic crisis I don't think people would like the idea of governments financing such project, it would be some sort of poetic justice considering Bell Center was partially publicly financed and until the 400th anniversary Montreal got almost everything and Quebec City, nothing. I do also hope that Montreal Canadiens won't try to block such move. In 1979, Montreal Canadiens tried at last minute to prevent Edmonton, Winnipeg, Quebec and Hartford from joining the NHL and to allow Quebec Nordiques in the NHL, the team was not allowed to have money from TV contracts for 6 years. Anyway I hope everything works out well so Quebec can get another team after Winnipeg got the Jets back. There are naysayers (especially from Montreal) who says Quebec won't be able to support another team, most saying tickets would be too expensive, but I am certain they would, like in Winnipeg. I even think it would have larger season ticket userbase and fanbase, given than the Nords always had better attendance than the Jets back in the days. Back in the days, some studies claimed that the Quebec Nordiques made profits in 1990, 1991, 1994 and 1995, even thought the owners claimed they were losing money. EDIT: on another note, if there are people who says Quebec is not a hockey town, the Quebec Remparts junior team has 7800 season tickets holder and an average regular season attendance of 11722, which is based on the amount of fans in the arena, not distributed tickets. Sure the tickets are incredibly cheap ($13 offline and $16 online for adults for individual tickets and about $340 for season tickets for adults) and there are 34 home games in a regular season instead of 41, but I don't think there are a lot of junior hockey teams in the world that can attract 500000 fans in an entire season
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