THE CANADIAN PRESS
PARDUBICE, Czech Republic — The general manager of the 2009 world junior hockey championship in Ottawa says that Vancouver, not Pardubice and Liberec, has set the standard for his organizing committee.
Comparing the 2008 tournament in the Czech Republic to what Ottawa has planned is comparing apples and oranges, says Bob O’Doherty.
"The scope of the event in Ottawa will be so much larger than the event here," he said this week at Pardubice Arena.
"Every Canadian city doesn’t really compare itself to a European city. It’s the last Canadian host city that hosted. The bar that we want to raise is the bar that was set by Vancouver in 2006."
Ottawa will be the eighth Canadian city to host a world junior championship after Vancouver, Halifax (2003), Winnipeg (1999), Red Deer, Alta. (1995), Saskatoon (1991), Hamilton (1986) and Montreal (1978).
It was Winnipeg that began upping the ante for each Canadian host city in terms of record ticket sales and profit.
Ottawa guaranteed a profit of $12.5 million and O’Doherty believes that can be surpassed.
The guarantee is over twice what Vancouver put up at $5.2 million to secure the 2006 tournament, although that tournament finished closer to $9 million in the black.
Vancouver’s corporate sponsorship was $3 million and Ottawa is already at $4.8 million, O’Doherty said.
"It seems everybody wants to get in on this event and quite truthfully, we’re running out of inventory to sell pretty soon," he said.
Hockey Canada gets 50 per cent of the profits from the tournament in Canada, the Canadian Hockey League 35 per cent and the provincial amateur hockey association of the host city or cities receive the remaining 15 per cent.
O’Doherty says Ottawa has sold 320,000 tickets, which is 80 per cent capacity.
The goal is 400,000, which would beat Vancouver’s record of 375,000 and he expects to approach that number by the end of February, with the tournament still months away.
Total attendance for the tournament in Czech Republic was expected to be around 100,000 after Saturday’s medal games.
Canadians made up a large portion of that number with an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 in Pardubice by the end of the tournament.
Canadian games had the second-highest average of 5,704 behind the Czech Republic’s games at 6,447.
One of the strengths of Ottawa’s bids is that the entire tournament will be held in one city with games at both the 20,000-seat Scotiabank Place, home of the NHL’s Ottawa Senators, and at the 10,000-seat Civic Centre, where the Ontario Hockey League’s Ottawa 67’s play.
Seventeen of the 31 games will be played at Scotiabank Place, which is what would help Ottawa reach its attendance goal.
"It’s a significant capacity, but for today’s environment in Canada, that’s the size of building that you need be financially successful," O’Doherty said.
Canada will play its preliminary-round games at Scotiabank Place and all playoff games will be held there.
.O’Doherty and Ottawa’s hockey operations co-ordinator Jean Vaillancourt spent time both in Pardubice and Liberec during the tournament and noticed a few differences in how tournaments in Canada and Europe operate.
"The European model for dressing rooms is they tend to have twice as many dressing rooms as we have," O’Doherty explained. "We’ll have to construct some new and temporary dressing rooms."
Canada uses volunteers to run these events and Ottawa has about 500 so far of the 1,200 required.
"They have no volunteers here. Everyone is paid," O’Doherty observed.
Canadian hosts also run a large fan festival alongside the tournament, while the event was strictly a hockey tournament in the Czech Republic.
Canada will host the tournament three of the next four years as Hockey Canada is accepting bids for the 2010 and 2012 tournaments. The U.S. gets it in 2011.
