Chilliwack relocating to Victoria; what’s next?
Published 12:47 pm Wednesday, April 20, 2011
The WHL’s worst-kept secret became official today, with the league announcing the Chilliwack Bruins have been sold and are moving to Victoria.
Let’s talk a little about what this means specifically. First, it means travel for all the WHL teams just got more complicated as getting to Victoria
requires a substantial ferry ride. It’s been suggested to me that going to Victoria, at least for the U.S. Division teams, will likely be treated like going to Prince George, with teams playing twice on back-to-back nights when they go to the island. It also means there will be some fantastic road (boat?) trips for traveling Tips fans. Weekend stay in Victoria? Yes please. Finally, this probably keeps the AHL out of Victoria. The AHL, with a newer team in Abbotsford and the possibility of having to move its team from Winnipeg to accommodate the NHL’s Coyotes, was reportedly eyeballing Victoria. That likely nudged the WHL into action.
More interesting is what this means on the greater stage. Will there be another team or two relocating? Since the rumors of Victoria returning to the league first surfaced, speculation has been rampant that more moves were in the works. The biggest rumor is another WHL team moving to fill the void in Chilliwack. What sense would that make? Why move a team out of Chilliwack, then move another team in? Why not just move that other team straight to Victoria and leave the Bruins in Chilliwack? This only makes sense if Prince George is that other team, as the Cougars moved from Victoria to Prince George in 1994, and it would probably be embarrassing for the owner and the league if the Cougars moved back. With travel costs rising I’m sure there’s some in the league who wouldn’t mourn the demise of that long bus ride to Prince George. But there’s other teams that have been mentioned as relocation candidates. Kootenay is constantly the subject of relocation rumors because Cranbrook is such a small community. Regina is currently in some heated lease arguments with its building. And Saskatoon has been mentioned in the whole NHL/AHL cascade.
And what about Vancouver Island? In the past it’s been said the league wouldn’t move back to the Island unless there were two teams there. I guess that’s not the case. I don’t think another team would relocate to the island for next season as there’s no other facility that is WHL ready. But will this spur on developments in Nanaimo?
Anyway, the first domino has fallen. Now we’re left playing the waiting game to see how the rest of this falls out.
