Hartley Miller's Slap-Shots, October 13th Edition

By Hartley Miller

A recent column discussed the possibility of Prince George hosting an NHL pre-season game, as soon as 2007.

Well, the puck has been dropped, and CN Centre General Manager Phil Beaulieu is looking to stick handle his way up the corporate ladder. "We will take the next step, and make some general inquiry calls, probably in mid-November. That would be a preliminary touch base, what’s the interest? (from the NHL end), what are the hurdles that we would have to overcome, and what kind of things would you be looking for in a package?"

Beaulieu states that Edmonton and Vancouver will be contacted. "I know some people involved with the Oilers, so I’ll start with a couple of calls there to find out some general information. Obviously the Canucks would be the team that we would be interested in, in a big way for sure, so I would definitely make some calls there".

Informal polls have been posted, with considerable discussion in various coffee shops in, and around, this city. Beaulieu has been paying attention: "The sense that I have is that there would be corporate support as well as ticket sales support and while nobody has phoned me up and said I really want to take this on, let’s make this happen, that, at this point doesn’t surprise me. Sometimes you need to make some calls to get the ball rolling and start to put together a little team and I think that the interest and excitement would be like a snowball rolling down a hill building momentum."

Although the idea is great, and the concept is sound, an event of this magnitude always faces one big stumbling block. Beaulieu agrees: "I’m not sure if our best economics would be sufficient. I’m looking at where they are playing exhibition games currently and they are in much larger facilities. Winnipeg, for example, has a 15,000 seat facility, which is 3 times the capacity we (PG) have and 8 times the market to draw from."

What about ticket prices? Yes, a delicate topic of conversation. According to Beaulieu, the highest price at the CN Centre was for David Copperfield at about $75 each. In this case, however, a three figure price is not out of the question: "I think that a 100 dollar ticket would be supportable in the community. I think that if we had to get into a major rock show price ticket of a couple of hundred dollars that would probably limit the people that would make it work".

Prince George residents have been asked if they are prepared to hand over a $100 bill to watch. In a small sampling, 94X radio listeners, with a large male audience between 18 and 49, voted 78 per cent in favor, while Opinion 250 readers rejected the idea by a 67.6-32.4 per cent margin (209 no and 100 yes). Beaulieu wasn’t surprised at the survey: "The Opinion 250 results would probably be accurate with the demographic that reads that publication, and the demographic that listens to 94X, that’s what I would expect. Those numbers are good for us. If the 94X ones would be reversed than we would have some concerns, absolutely".

There’s no question an NHL exhibition game in Prince George remains a long shot, but so were the Detroit Tigers against the New York Yankees.

From the quote rack:

NBC’S Jay Leno, on a party to honor Nobel Prize winner, and the co-discoverer of DNA,
James Watson.

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"I wonder if the DA will seek hang time." 

Contributor Bill Littlejohn of South Lake Tahoe, California, on prosecutors mulling charges,
after the second string punter on Northern Colorado University stabbed the starting punter.

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Comedian Argus Hamilton, on NBC’s Sunday Night Football losing in the TV ratings to Desperate Housewives and Cold Case.

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Syndicated columnist Tom Fitzgerald 

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Richard Oliver of the San Antonio Express-News, after Russian chess grandmaster Vladimir Kramnik stormed out of the 5th game of the world-reunification title series after finding out competitors were forced to share a single bathroom.

And in case you missed it:

Toronto Blue Jays catcher Benjie Molina has been voted in an SI players’ survey the slowest-footed
player in the Majors, taking 56 percent of the vote.

And how was your week?

Hartley Miller is the sports director for radio stations 94X and the Wolf@97fm. Send along a quote, note or anecdote to hmiller@94xfm.com

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