The Day The Growl Died

The inevitable happened today as the ECHL Board of Governors met, but things didn't play out as expected when the suits emerged from the boardroom. I had written about the financial problems of Deacon Sports and Entertainment last week, and things were to be settled today by the bigwigs who run the ECHL when it came to the longevity of the Newfoundland Growlers and Trois-Rivières Lions. It seemed clear that the ECHL would have to manage both of these teams through to the end of the season unless a buyer was found for either team or both teams. Questions of whether we'd see DSE's financial problems wipe out two franchises would likely be answered before the day was out, but what would the ECHL look like after those answers were given?

It turns out that the franchise everyone expected to survive is the one who was axed while the other, with its growing debts and struggling attendance, was the one that survived.

The ECHL announced today that Newfoundland Growlers would cease operations immediately as the Board of Governors voted to terminate the membership of the franchise "for failure to fulfill its obligations under the ECHL Bylaws". The 2019 Kelly Cup champions are no more as the ECHL shuttered the franchise following the vote, making all ECHL-contracted players on the roster unrestricted free agents. To say this came as a bit of a shock is accurate, but there are some underlying numbers that justify this decision. We'll get to the numbers in a second because there was more news on the way.

The other announcement that was made today was that the Trois-Rivières Lions had been sold to a group by Deacon Sports and Entertainment, and that sale was simply needing the ECHL to rubber-stamp it. This is the same franchise that owes the city of Trois-Rivières $650,000 in lease payments so I'm a little shocked there was a sale to another group who is willing to assume those debts, but this is why I don't own any sports franchises in my portfolio.

What may have sunk Newfoundland's hopes, though, was the insane costs in getting to the island of Newfoundland to play games. On average, a flight from Portland, Maine - home of the Maine Mariners - to St. John's, Newfoundland costs around $1000 CDN with at least one stop in either Montreal or Toronto along the way. The total time of the trip for any of the flights offered was no less than 12 hours via a commercial flight, so I'd imagine that a lot of ECHL teams looked at booking chartered planes for their visit to The Rock.

The only problem with that plan is that it's usually costlier to fly chartered than it is commercial. In fact, most NHL teams fly in some sort of commercial-sized chartered plane like an Airbus A320. Based on that linked article, the hourly rental rate for one of those planes is about $18,500 USD, so let's just make it clear that ECHL teams weren't flying to St. John's for games. Ever.

If teams decided to use a more economical approach and bus it to Newfoundland, Portland is the closest rival the Growlers have and it's still a 29-hour bus ride to and from St. John's in each direction. With players needing meals and bus drivers under stricter laws regarding the amount of time they can safely drive, that's a two-day trip in each direction. With some teams arriving on game day in St. John's based on their schedule, it's understandable that the logistics may have doomed the Growlers when it came to costs for the opposing teams, let alone the Growlers themselves.

We'll go a little deeper as well, though, because the numbers are where the details lie, and it's said the devil is in those details. The Newfoundland Growlers are 22nd-overall in terms of average attendance for ECHL teams this season out of the 28 franchises according to HockeyDB.com. While the ECHL would love more than ten of its 28 teams to be above the 5000-fans-per-game mark, it seems that a number of locations, including the Growlers in St. John's, weren't reaching that number.

Based on the linked graph, the Lions are 27th of 28 teams when it comes to average attendance, so it seems like Deacon Sports and Entertainment wasn't doing a very good job with the sports or the entertainment. I can't see anyone wanting to own one of the least-watched teams in the ECHL that's saddled with debt, but the Lions will play again while the Growlers are a memory despite the latter having 1500 people watching them per game than the Lions do.

Whoever stepped up to buy les Lions had better know how to market a team to a population that supports the Montreal Canadiens and the Laval Rocket for professional hockey while attending QMJHL games and U SPORTS games. The Lions are being outdrawn on average by the NCAA Division-III Utica Pioneers men's team, 41 NCAA men's hockey teams, the Wisconsin Badgers women's hockey team, and 15 of 18 QMJHL teams. In other words, no one is La Belle Province is going to watch Lions hockey, so erasing that debt and building a brand in and around Trois-Rivières is going to be a huge task.

Imagine the crazy twist this story would have if the Trois-Rivières Lions were to rally and win the Kelly Cup this season. With them sitting in fourth-place in the ECHL's North Division as per points percentages, there's a solid chance that they could make the dance. A deep playoff run after this debacle could be the very ingredient the new owners can use to sell tickets for next season and beyond. Before we put that cart before the horse, though, they need to make the playoffs. With three of four games remaining against the Worcester Railers who trail them by .008 in the points percentage standings, it would seem the playoffs for the Lions start now.

Hockey fans in St. John's, however, deserve better than having teams play there for a decade before heading to other locales. The AHL's St. John's Maple Leafs called the city home from 1991-2005. The St. John's Fog Devils were the QMJHL team in town from 2005-08 before the AHL's St. John's IceCaps played on The Rock from 2011-17. The Growlers moved into town in 2018, won the Kelly Cup in 2019, and officially had the doors locked on them on April 2, 2024. That's four teams in three leagues over the last 33 years, and I don't know if or when there will be another team that lands there.

I hope whoever the new owners of the Lions are can find success because the more successful of the two teams in the sale is now just a chapter in the ECHL's history. The number of ECHL teams drops from 28 to 27 today thanks to Deacon Sports and Entertainment being terrible at their jobs, but c'est la vie in minor-pro hockey: here today, gone the next. For Growlers fans, you have every right to be rotted.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!