TORONTO, Ont. -- In a city desperate for any semblance of a top hockey prospect, only a smattering showed up to watch 40 of the finest Wednesday night in Toronto.
The paltry turnout at the Air Canada Centre for Wednesday night's Home Hardware CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game confirmed that junior hockey can't steal the Toronto spotlight.
Not even for a single night.
The crowd at the annual showcase of the top 40 prospects was a bleak reminder of how tough a sell junior hockey is in Canada's largest city. At one point, some members of the media kidded one team should have worn Maple Leafs jerseys.
But all jokes aside, the empty top tier of the Air Canada Centre did nothing but punctuate the near morgue-like atmosphere from a scattered lower bowl.
More than 8,000 fans were on hand for the midweek game of junior prospects, which would be a great showing in most junior rinks. Many of the players playing in the game have never played in front of such a crowd, but undoubtedly have played in front of many more passionate crowds in league play.
Which begs the question: Why is Toronto still in the mix to host the game?
"It's a beautiful building -- obviously, a great place for hockey and great sightlines," said Atlanta Thrashers general manager Rick Dudley. "The disadvantage is it's not full."
Among the other advantages is the ease of travel for scouts and National Hockey League personnel. Dudley, for example, has a short trek home from Toronto to his residence upstate New York, while many more NHL decision-makers live near Toronto. For those out-of-towners, a flight to Toronto makes it easy to attend the game.
Another advantage is for the players; who get to play in an NHL facility.
"It was my first time being at the ACC," said Burnaby, B.C.'s Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. "Any time you get to play in an NHL rink is pretty special."
"You hear you're playing in the ACC and it's like, 'Wow!'" Daniel Catenacci, a Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds prospect, marveled.
But for all its perks, there are just as many disadvantages. The silent crowd underlined the apathy towards the game and only helped dull an event that had otherwise been gaining a lot of steam in dedicated junior rinks in recent years.
The last two games were held in Windsor, Ont., and Oshawa, Ont., and were the hottest ticket in town. Fans flocked to each rink for the game, just as they're used to doing for Spitfires and Generals home games.
And therein lies the rub: How do you get big league sports fans excited about a junior game?
"Maybe they're not OHL or CHL fans, but if it was in a hometown of a CHL team, I think all the fans would come out and cheer you on," Catenacci said.
Bingo.
Some will argue this was nothing more than a cash grab to put the event in the biggest market. Biggest market, yes, but it's by far and away not the most successful.
The three biggest cities in Western Canada supported the game in droves when it was awarded hosting rights in recent years. More than 16,000 fans supported the game in Vancouver in 2005, while Edmonton and Calgary drew in excess of 13- and 14-thousand in 2008 and 1999, respectively.
"Toronto is just a Maple Leaf town and it's very hard to draw in this type of market," said Hockey Canada's head scout, Kevin Prendergast. "In Edmonton, they had their own junior team. When it was in Calgary, they had their own junior team (too) so the fans were on board to come out and look at it. I can't speak for the Toronto market, but it is what it is."
It is disappointing. This was the fifth time Toronto hosted the event in its 16-year history. The first three years were in Toronto at Maple Leaf Gardens with the fourth, in 2000, at the Air Canada Centre.
But the 8,029 fans on Wednesday were eclipsed by smaller markets such as Saskatoon, SK, in 2002 and London, ON in 2004.
Dudley felt the crowd was perhaps deceiving due to the large building.
"If you had this crowd in Kitchener, the building would be full and it would seem like an electric atmosphere," he said. "It's a little tougher here."
