World U-17 Hockey Challenge draws out 20,000 fans in Medicine Hat

“We wanted to see great hockey, we wanted our community to rally around it, we wanted the volunteers to come out, and I do think we accomplished all of those,” said Brake.

Now that the dust has settled, organizers like Brake are reflecting on the week and tournament that was.

“I think we had high expectations for ourselves going in,” said Brake. “I think we would have loved to have seen a little bit more people at the rink. But, at the same time it’s a lot of hockey over eight days, so we were really happy with the crowd that we got.”

Estimated attendance in Medicine Hat over the week is put at 20,044 spectators with an average of 1,822 fans per game.

The highest of those was Saturday’s gold medal final between Russia and the United States, attracting just under 3,000 attendees to the championship tilt.

“Honestly, I was expecting it a little bit higher as we got into the medal rounds,” said Canalta Centre general manager Tammy Sweeney. “Saturday afternoon’s game was a little bit lower than what I expected, but the weather was terrible outside. It was icy, it was cold, so I think that may have kept some people away.”

While the Canalta Centre never came close to selling out over the course of the tournament, Sweeney added she isn’t at all concerned about the numbers.

“We’re getting pretty good at predicting what we’ll see for different events and I wasn’t surprised,” she said. “Would it have been nice to see a sell-out? Absolutely, but did I expect it? No, not really.”

According to organizers in Medicine Hat, Hockey Canada was pleased with the overall attendance and echoed similar turnouts in recent years.

“With the crowd sizes, I think they were happy,” said Brake. “I think they would have preferred a couple more people in Swift Current. But, at the same time again it’s a lot of hockey and that’s definitely a smaller community as well.”

Swift Current’s Innovation Credit Union iPlex only saw an estimated 6,615 fans turn out for 11 games, resulting in an average of 601 fans per game.

While Swift Current is roughly a quarter of the size of Medicine Hat and the iPlex only holds about 2,900 fans, organizers on the Saskatchewan side of the border weren’t thrilled by the numbers.

Co-chair of the Swift Current committee Liam Choo-Foo said they’re still scratching their heads and don’t believe the lower than expected numbers were due to a lack of awareness about the event.

“Everyone was talking about how good the hockey was, yet it wasn’t translating into people buying tickets and putting bums in seats,” said Choo-Foo. “So, we were a little disappointed with the turnout.”

Even with the low attendance, Choo-Foo added it was a great week for the city and helped to showcase Swift Current on an international stage.

Overall, organizers still said this year’s World Under-17 Hockey Challenge was a huge success and the numbers seem to back that up.

The 2019 event was the second-highest attended World U-17 tournament over the past four years with 26,659 total fans, trailing only the 33,189 fans at the 2017 event in Dawson Creek and Fort St. John in British Columbia.

Year-over-year the Medicine Hat and Swift Current event outsold last year’s World Under-17 Hockey Challenge in New Brunswick by close to 1,500 spectators.

Brake added that helps lay the groundwork for similar tournaments here in Medicine Hat.

“I think it’s so great to see that we can host these events, we can host them successfully, and now it’s looking forward to the future and what that’s going to be,” she said.

Hoping to explore their relationship with Hockey Canada further, Brake said they’ll be looking to possibly bid for a 2021 World Juniors pre-tournament game which will be hosted in Edmonton and Red Deer.

by Scott Roblin

World U-17 Hockey Challenge draws out 20,000 fans in Medicine Hat

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