SabresBaltimore

Yeah. I agree. I don't think there were a ton of fans filling the seats when the Beauts played at FNA, and they wer giving away free tickets to anyone who bought a ticket for that night's Sabres game. However the Harbor Center was near to full capacity for all of their other home games I believe. It seems like the perfect venue for a Woman's team right now.

Not sure what you mean, but you're welcome! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Another thing I was thinking about with regards to the NBA/WNBA model, if it's taken like 20 years for teams to turn a profit in a sport of Basketball that is far more popular/profitable than hockey is in the US and it took them nearly 20 years to start having some profitable teams. The counter to that is the NWHL had at least one profitable team last season, although how much of one is unclear. But if I'm the NHL, and already struggling for popularity in many US markets, I'm leery about the prospect of trying something similar. One of the articles I read proposed a 6 team league of Buffalo, Boston, St. Paul and Toronto, Montreal and Calgary. I'm surprised they didn't have New York on that list, but maybe the Metropolitans have never been popular in an already crowded New York city market? The Whitecaps were apparently profitable this past season by topping ticket sales and doing pretty well on merchandise as well. I get Calgary from a popularity perspective, but from a logistics/travel perspective it makes it a lot more expensive that a more central or east coast Canadian team. I feel like Buffalo or maybe one of the proposed Canadian teams has the next best chance of being profitable. Then again based on some of the comments on this thread (assuming this forum is even remotely representative of Sabres fans as a whole) it seems that even among hockey fans there is little interest in woman's hockey. Buffalo had the next best attendance behind Minnesota, but they probably operated at a much higher cost than the other teams. Then again, it's probably a lot easier for someone like PSE who already owns another hockey team to spread those costs out because they are already paying a lot of them for the Sabres. Personally I still don't like many of the decisions Gary Bettman has made as commissioner, I'm not a fan of him overseeing a new Woman's league too. With regards to attendance, I'm not sure the ratio of men to woman is that important. To me the most significant attendance number is young girls/woman that go. If they become fans, some of them go on to play themselves. The more that play, the higher the quality of the next generation of players and that's what will help the game most long term. This year's IIHF tournament shows that (at least under the right circumstances) a country not named Canada or the United States can contend for an international title. But right now in North America I think they have the depth for 6-8 teams tops. With the two leagues they had 11. Even if you eliminate the duplicate Boston team that's still 2-4 too many for a single league to sustain, and a bunch of players who aren't good enough to keep their jobs. But in the short term, they just needs buts in seats. Especially season ticket holders, because that's up front/guaranteed money. Having any sort of streaming/TV package is another good way. The WNBA charges $17 for the entire season league pass and $10 for a team pass. Hockey could probably do something a bit cheaper. $17 is less than what I typically spend on concessions at a single Sabres game. Sell enough of those and it adds up. Of course part of the pricing will be how many games they play so the cost per game isn't too high. Then they need to sell merchandise. The Beauts did a lot of meet and greets last year from what I saw. I think every home game had something at the 716 after. That's a good way to endear yourself to the fans. I think they also did some during intermissions at Sabres games as well. It's no surprise 2/3 of the top selling jerseys were Buffalo Beauts ( Shannon Szabados and Emily Pfalzer). And I think a few others were in the top 10. I think jersey sales was the only real way for players to get any additional money beyond their meager salary or sponsorship deals.

I skimmed that page but I had a hard time figuring out how pay works in that league. It looks like the NBA operated them at a loss owning all the teams for about 6 years before selling the teams to corresponding NBA owners where possible and 3rd party owners in a few other cases. It also appears it's taken nearly 25 years for just half of the 12 teams to be profitable. In terms of TV deals, I never watch NBCSN unless hockey is on. I'm sure Premier League does decent for them too, but they have a lot of time to fill that could easily add woman's hockey. Another option is the NHL Network. They are the ones who showed all the US and Canadian Woman's games at the IIHF tournament last month. It was through a partnership with TSN though. So TSN did all the heavy lifting. Still the NWHL was already streaming most of their games on Twitter and YouTube, so they could just give that feed the NBCSN or the NHL Network and all those channels would need to do is figure out the advertising and intermissions if they didn't want to spend money on their own crews.

Yup. I wanted to buy a Harmon jersey since she played for my college too. She's on the list. Along with every other Clarkson University player I recognize.

Yeah. My point was less about skill than name recognition. How do you market a league without any of the players for your country's national team on it. The picket line point is good one too. I know I have no plans to see a game next season unless this gets resolved. I had been planning to do so before this started. The only solution would be some kind of compromise that brings the players back in. What exactly that will be is hard say. Is medical insurance enough? Some kind of equity in the league? Unless some super rich sponsors fall from the sky they aren't going to be able to pay anyone in the league a living wage. There was an article a few weeks back about the complexity of the visas too. If you get a work visa to play sports, that won't let you also work somewhere unrelated to your sport. So if you're not paid enough money to live, and you're playing for a foreign team, how are you supposed to supplement your income? And how could the league even hope to solve that? Really this whole thing is a mess that doesn't have any good ways out that I can see.

I think PSE previously said (possibly unofficially) that they didn't expect to field a team in the fall. So the league may have gotten it back so they could try to field a team with whatever players may be left. While I don't think the boycott will have the desired effect, I also don't think trying to have a season without those 200 players is worth doing either. The entirety of both the US and Canadian national teams are on the list. If the leagues weren't getting much revenue WITH those players, what chance do they honestly think they have without them?

This is an interesting proposal: https://www.theicegarden.com/2019/5/7/18531465/using-the-premier-lacrosse-league-as-a-blueprint-for-the-game-pll-hilary-knight-paul-rabil I had no idea about the PLL before this article. I've been to a few Bandits games and I have watched some of the games when they've been broadcast. I know they have a streaming package, but I've never bothered to look into it. If this PLL is on NBCSN I'll be more likely to watch some. Although without a Buffalo team to root for (or Baltimore/DC team for that matter), I'm not sure how much I'll care. Something about rooting for teams from my hometown makes a bigger difference in my attention on a sport or team. I think that's one of the reasons Overwatch League is trying to do that with Esports. The traveling idea could be interesting, but I want a Buffalo team. I especially like the idea of them playing in the Summer to build up an audience. I mainly watch Hockey, Football and Tennis. I don't like Baseball much unless I go to a game. So having another sport to watch in the Summer would be nice since I typically only watch the last few rounds of the bigger Tennis tournaments. Although it would make it harder to do a double header with the Sabres. Then again, I've been looking for excuses to come up to Buffalo when the weather is nicer as I typically only come up for Hockey and Christmas right now.

For me I really enjoy Woman's Hockey. I started getting into a few years ago it because both the Sabres and the Clarkson Men's teams were awful. Meanwhile the Clarkson woman's team was winning 3 National championships in 5 years. Many of their players went on to play in the CWHL and last year's captain went to play for the Beauts. The NWHL makes it pretty easy to watch the games online, if you're not in a place where you can go to see it live. I'd have paid money for it if need be, but the fact that they didn't even try to charge for online games shows the level of interest. If I still lived in Buffalo I'd probably have either gotten Beauts season tickets or at least gone to multiple games last season. I had been hoping to do a Beauts game the same weekend I come up in the Fall for a Sabres game, but I guess that won't be happening now. I'm not super attached to the NWHL, and I think "Beauts" is a terrible name, but I like having a Buffalo team to root for. I just hope if the NWHL does fold and the NHL creates a WNHL in its place, I hope Buffalo keeps their team (ideally with a new name). I always like the Buffalo Blizzard, and it's not like the soccer team is using it anymore. Of course changing the name would suck for fans who bought merchandise. I almost bought a jersey myself, now I'm kind of glad I didn't.

Liz Knox, former head of the CWHLPA and one of the leaders of the Boycott gave an interview: https://www.theicegarden.com/2019/5/2/18526916/liz-knox-on-the-for-the-game-movement-womens-hockey-boycott-cwhl-nwhl Apparently this was Hillary Knight and Kendall Coyne Schofield idea. And Billy Jean King told them it was a good idea. If anyone can speak to the idea of woman athletes bailing on an existing league and forging a way forward it's her. I'm not sure hockey has the same kind of popularity or money that tennis did back then. And they had a big sponsor in Virginia Slims in setting up the new league. Maybe someone will step up that sees those big names and thinks they can make a deal, but I'm not holding my breath.

There are a lot of great players on this list..there won't be much left for the NWHL next season: https://www.theicegarden.com/2019/5/2/18526991/a-list-of-players-involved-in-for-the-game I get why they are doing it, but I don't think it will have the outcome they are hoping for. NWHL and Director of the NWHLPA have issued statements: https://www.theicegarden.com/2019/5/2/18527183/nwhl-nwhlpa-release-statements-in-response-to-forthegame-movement-dani-rylan-anya-battaglino-fratkin The league seems to be holding out hope this won't last and is holding out an olive branch..

Yeah, that article is a little too detail on the legalities for me. Trying to follow it all made my head hurt. My bottom line take aways from it were: The same kind of VISAs used by the NHL are harder to use here because they wouldn't allow those players to both play in the NHWL and have another job unrelated to hockey. That's a pretty big dealbreaker for most players since they don't get paid enough to live on, unlike the NHL players. It also wouldn't allow those players to bring their families with them, another big dealbreaker. So I feel like a lot of Canadian players will end up not playing because they simply can't afford to and there would be a much more limited number of slots if they go from the 5 Canadian teams the CWHL had to two teams the NWHL is trying to expand to. The NWHL did have some Canadians, including a few on the Beauts, but I'm not sure the exact details of those. We're close enough to Canada that maybe they were living and working their primary in Southern Ontario and simply commuting? I'd be curious to find that out. I know at least one of the Beauts got her American citizenship this year.

I know he did for awhile after being fired. Not sure if he still does though.

So obviously our next head coach needs to come in and save us all from mediocrity. And probably play both defense, and goalie and probably second line center. Is Jesus available? I heard he could walk on water... I've liked most of JBotts moves, but the O'Reilly trade still has me shaking my head. If he can re-sign Skinner without handicapping our salary cap, I think we're moving in the right direction despite the way this season ended. I like what's happening in Rochester from the little I've been following it. If we don't see real improvement (either finally make the playoffs or just missing out in last few days of the season) I'd expect he'd get fired, but I can never tell what the hell the ownership is thinking. I don't know what's going to finally fix things. Is it the ownership? Is it because fans have become so jaded they'll blame the good players like Eichel or Dalin or say how Reinhardt didn't do enough? Something had to change. They way this team played down the stretch, there was no way they could keep Housley. I'm not sure who can fix things, but at this point we could do a lot worse than Lindy Ruff. He's changed his system multiple times over the years to fit the players he's had, and that's the kind of coach we need right now. I don't want someone with a killer system. I want someone who take what he's given and make the playoffs. In the meantime JBotts has a lot of work to do this offseason if he hopes to keep his job..

Man who the hells knows what will happen now, apparently the investor who backed out of the CWHL wants to take over and revive the league with a new board: https://www.theicegarden.com/2019/4/5/18297226/reports-former-cwhl-investor-interested-in-league-graeme-roustan-investor-nhl It also sounds like there is still some unfavorable feelings between many CWHL players and the NWHL based on how things went down in the first two years of the league: https://www.theicegarden.com/2019/4/5/18292808/womens-hockey-in-north-america-is-no-stranger-to-turbulence-nwhl-cwhl As an aside, I do love seeing 3/5 top scorers from my Alma mater. I'm really hoping Loren Gabel ends up with the Beauts next season. However with all the flux right now it's anyone's guess.

I agree that's part of it. But he's also said he doesn't like the business model of either league. So I'll be curious if their investment comes with conditions. NWHL is an LLC. If they are going to grow, they probably need to incorporate.

Some additional details: In talks with the existing stakeholders for Toronto/Montreal. No restricted free agency this year, which should make it easier for players to move around. 24 games next season. https://www.theicegarden.com/2019/4/2/18292409/nwhl-add-two-canadian-teams-receives-significant-investment-from-nhl-montreal-toronto-bettman-rylan I feel like a large part of the Sabres problem is too much interfere from non hockey people at PSE. But I agree, we don't really know.

Interesting about the NHL investing. A bit surprising given past statements from Bettman. I'll be curious to see the details. Will they be selling the teams? Will Toronto and Montreal stay in tact, or brand new teams? How do they handle the draft? NWHL had theirs already. I think it's good for both leagues and for Woman's hockey whatever else ends up happening.

Maybe PSE is more hands off with the Beauts?

Yeah. I don't think they afford to absorb too many teams, so you take Toronto, Montreal and which other team? Brampton seems the easiest in terms of travel, especially now that it would have to go international. Maybe do 2 divisions like: Minnesota Toronto Brampton Buffalo Montreal Boston Connecticut New York I'd hate to not be in with Boston and Montreal, but given where the teams are, I'm not sure how else you'd split it up.. And I agree about the 3 game playoff and more regular season games. I'm just sure if they can afford to expand both in size and games at the same time without some serious surge of investment from say the NHL and/or partnering with NHL teams/ownership.

It sounds like that's what Bettman wants. I'd like to see the NWHL absorb the CWHL teams that it can, but ideally try to get ownership groups for each at the same time instead of being league owned. A lot of these partnerships seems to involve financial help, but it's probably be better if the associated NHL team was maybe the same ownership group, or maybe something closer to what the league does with the AHL? I guess whatever works best for the players, leagues, sponsors and any ownership they have beyond PSE. I'm not sure what the right answer will be, but hopefully they can figure something out before the fall.

That seems likely as there were apparently already rumors about adding them prior to last season. I've also seen they were looking at both Pittsburgh and DC. I'm not sure DC could support a team. Ovechkin and the Capitals finally wining the cup have certainly seen a rise in popularity of Hockey around here since I moved here back in 2004, but I still don't think there would be enough support. Depending on where they play and the schedule, I'd consider getting season tickets. At a minimum I'd try to go to all the Beauts games. The NWHL played its all-star game in Nashville this year, and they partnered with the Predators, including having Shannon Szabados on during a Pred's intermission to help promote the weekend.

Not exactly related, but I was talking about attendance numbers, apparently the NWHL announced theirs: Minnesota: 1,200 Buffalo: 1,101 Riveters: 721 Boston: 706 Connecticut: 423 (source :https://www.theicegarden.com/2019/3/28/18285556/nwhl-releases-details-2018-19-season-attendance-merchandise-sales-viewership-growth-dani-rylan) Connecticut was HORRIBLE this year. The Riveters (despite having some high profile players like Amanda Kessel and being the defending champions) weren't much better, at least record-wise. Connecticut may have had better attendance early in the season by the game I saw the Beauts play there at the end of the season the arena looked like a ghost town. Apparently between tickets and merchandise the Whitecaps turned a profit this year. I'd be curious to see what the CWHL's attendance numbers looked like by comparison. I'd think Toronto and Montreal would both have good attendance at least, but the CWHL haven't been very transparent I guess. On the topic of combining the leagues I didn't realize CWHL was nonprofit, while NWHL is not. Also travel between countries, even if they keep to a weekend only schedule for now may be too much for some of players since all of them need full time jobs to earn a living while trying to play hockey at professional level.

Some interesting articles I found on this: https://www.theicegarden.com/2018/11/28/18116023/cwhl-loses-major-investor-as-roustan-capital-withdraws-financial-support https://www.theicegarden.com/2019/3/31/18289380/q-a-with-cwhlpa-co-head-liz-knox-cwhl-ceasing-operations https://www.theicegarden.com/2019/3/31/18289259/what-we-know-and-what-we-dont-about-the-cwhl-ceasing-operations-womens-hockey

Hmm. I had only ever heard about the Devils and Sabres. It does look like the Whitecaps are partnered with the Wild last summer just ahead of joining the NWHL and apparently the Pride partnered with the Bruins back in January. The two Boston teams has always been one of the biggest issues between the two leagues. I guess the Pride won out over the Blades even before the CWHL called it quits. Looking at it closer the Blades moved to Worchester last season, probably because from what I can tell most of the fan support in Boston swapped to the Pride already anyways. I'm not sure who the Connecticut team would partner with since the Whalers are long gone and there aren't any other teams up that way now. I'm biased, but I feel like the NWHL has been doing a lot of the right things to grow the sport, although their success will definitely be built on the CWHL no matter what happens from here.

Yeah. Bettman is on record saying he won't put the NHL's support behind either of the leagues until they figured it out, so I guess this is one way of doing that. There have already been signs of cross promotion with the NHL beyond what the Pegula's have been doing here in Buffalo, in particular with some NWHL players being at the NHL all-star game this year. The Metropolitan Riveters have partnered with the NJ Devils, although I'm not sure what the exact details of that are, since I believe the Riveters are still owned by the NWHL.