Category: Hamilton Bulldogs

When last we checked in on the Hamilton Bulldogs, the (I’m going to get this right this time, I swear) junior hockey team’s owner was demanding a smaller stadium or else he’d leave town, and the city council was on board with considering building a “right-sized” arena for as much as $130 million to replace the city’s existing one. So I honestly had to blink a couple of times to be sure I was really reading today’s news that the council has voted down the plan as stupid and a waste of public money:

Councillors voted 11 to 3 against participating with Hamilton Bulldogs owner Michael Andlauer in a development at the mountain mall…

A report presented by authors Glen Norton and Ryan McHugh from the economic development and planning department (EDPD) … recommended “no further action be taken” in terms of moving forward with the project, citing cost and location as issues as well as the potential “negative perception” associated with downsizing to a capacity of fewer than 10,000 seats…

[Mayor Fred Eisenberger] defended the city’s current downtown arena and suggested further investment in FirstOntario Centre as a more feasible option.

“But to continue to disparage a facility that is actually probably as good a facility as any that are around other than in size, I think is a little disingenuous,” said Eisenberger…

“It really comes down to the feasibility and whether or not we can afford it and what kind of asset are we going to get at the end of the day?” said [Coun. Brenda] Johnson. “We’re not getting an asset. We’re just giving money away to a private investor who’s going to benefit.”

Okay, so admittedly Andlauer had significantly blue-skied the city by lowballing maintenance and operations costs on a new arena and the price tag of building parking garages, and was trying to stick the public with three-quarters of the costs of his new building — that’s just what sports team owners do! For city analysts to actually notice, and then city officials to read the analysts’ report and vote a plan down as a result, is extremely unusual, and makes me think we’ve somehow passed into an alternate dimension where decisions are made based on common sense and not keeping the local very rich guy happy.

As for what happens now, Andlauer already moved an AHL team out of town two years ago, then moved it again two years later, so clearly he’s willing to pack up the moving vans in order to punctuate his hissy fits. On the other hand, Hamilton is in a virtual tie with Quebec City for the largest city in Canada without an NHL team, so Andlauer might not find greener pastures quite so easily, and if he does, you have to imagine somebody else would interested in locating a team in Hamilton if he leaves. Sure, he or they could always try to demand upgrades to the current arena as part of any deal — and the mayor did leave the door open for that, so Hamilton taxpayers aren’t totally out of the woods yet. But still, it’s nice every once in a while to see some elected officials willing to say publicly when the local sports team owner is wearing no clothes.

The Hamilton Bulldogs arena kerfuffle is reaching one of the lower DEFCONs, with the discovery of a confidential proposal to the city by team owner Michael Andlauer to have taxpayers build a new arena at Lime Ridge Mall, for which Andlauer would “partially offset” the costs:

No construction costs are included in proposal documents viewed by The Spectator and team owner Michael Andlauer declined through a spokesperson Monday to talk about how much he is willing to pay. Past estimates floated for a Mountain arena have been around $60 million.

That would be smaller than the 10,000-seat arena that the city council was discussing just last week to replace the city’s 17,400-seat arena. And Andlauer has upped the ante by threatening to move his team out of town if an arena isn’t completed quickly:

Team owner Michael Andlauer isn’t prepared to wait the four or five years the proposed project is expected to take.

Andlauer says if the city can’t get a new arena up and running before that, he’ll be forced to look at moving his OHL hockey team elsewhere.

“I don’t want to be put in that position, but I think timing is going to create that.”

He can certainly do that, but as the second-largest Canadian city without an NHL team, Hamilton would be well-positioned to pick up another hockey franchise if the Bulldogs left town. In fact, that’s how the city ended up with these Bulldogs in the first place, after Andlauer’s previous American Hockey League team of the same name moved to St. John’s, Newfoundland in 2015.

Also, Andlauer has threatened this before, using the same Hamilton Spectator columnist, Andrew Dreschel, as his mouthpiece. One hopes that the two-minute warning ploy wouldn’t carry as much weight anymore now that so many team owners have tried it over and over again, but nobody ever went broke gambling on the gullibility of local elected officials.

It was only a decade ago that Hamilton’s Copps Coliseum was being considered as a potential relocation target for various NHL teams, or at least being used as a threat by them. The Ontario city ended up without a franchise, though, and now the 34-year-old arena — since renamed something about a bank — is being targeted for possible demolition and replacement, not because it’s too old, but because it’s too big:

The city’s general issues committee voted Wednesday to set up a steering committee, hire a project manager and look at partnering with private companies to replace the city’s largest entertainment venue with a smaller one.

The move came after city staff said Hamilton needs a “right-sized” venue to replace the former Copps Coliseum — one with about 10,000 seats rather than the 17,400 the aging arena has now…

The Bulldogs are the current main tenant, and the staff report predicts attendance at those OHL games would increase 20 to 50 per cent with a new facility. Increased revenue, staff say, would bring in $20 million over the next 30 years.

But it would cost as much as $130 million to build a new facility, the report says. And some councillors are hesitant to tackle that price tag.

Okay, so a couple of things: First off, the idea that sports teams and the cities that love them too much should be building smaller venues is an old one, and makes sense if the new sports marketing strategy is to sell fewer higher-priced tickets and charge everyone else to watch on TV at home. But that’s if you’re building new — the idea of spending $130 million just to get a new arena that is 7,000 seats smaller is pretty crazy, when you can reduce capacity at an existing building just by throwing a tarp over the upper deck.

The premise here seems to be that the Bulldogs junior hockey team — that’s under-21s — would draw enough more fans in a smaller arena to make it worth the expense, which is at best an extremely speculative notion: Yes, watching sports in a “right-sized” venue can be more pleasant, but enough so that an additional 1,000 to 2,500 people are going to turn up every night just because there’s no upper deck? (The Bulldogs currently average just under 5,000 fans a night in attendance.) And to make a $130 million investment pay off, adding even 2,500 fans apiece at 34 home games would have to spend about $100 each for the arena just to break even on increased attendance alone. (A city report projects that ensmallening the arena would also save a little under $1 million a year in maintenance costs, in which case an additional 2,500 hockey fans a night would just need to spend $90 each to make the numbers work.)

There are other possible upsides to replacing your arena — you can get more modern facilities including revenue producers like ad boards and luxury seating, you can relocate it elsewhere in your city and redevelop the old arena land, etc. — but that seems to be less of a motivation than this “the old one has 7,000 too many seats” thing. Though most likely the real motivation has more to do with the Bulldogs owner making noise about wanting a new arena, after the previous minor-league Bulldogs moved to Newfoundland and were replaced by the junior hockey franchise. So while a new Hamilton arena may not necessarily be the dumbest idea on the face of the earth, it seems only reasonable to consider it dumb until proven smart.