Quote:
Originally Posted by Dutch
Salaries have gone down a bit in the LNAH nowadays.
But yeah it's a big problem when it comes to recruiting. I even knew some guys who attended UQTR but played in the LNAH during the weekends for a better pay day.
Still, that doesn't explain why there's not more than 3 teams in the province. When it comes to Laval, they don't want to compete with the Remparts (pretty much the same owners)
As for others... they're just seems to be no interest at all. I went to Sherbrooke for a year and never heard about someone wanting to get a hockey team. However, football's doing great there and pretty much takes all the attention.
Montreal could, one day, have a team, since they have the women team, but no hockey team on the island seems to have success if they're not wearing a C and a H on their jersey.
|
It's interesting that most of these schools, including Bishops, all had Hockey programs at one time. UNB has played them all (played Laval in '82, Montreal in '64 and Bishops in '82).
It's easy to cut a program when it's not winning - a few years of losing and the administration starts looking at the money.
Every market is different: Quebec has the LNHA to compete against, the AUS has a shortage of schools (MT.A is too small and UCCB and MUN both tried without success) and the West has WHL and 'distance costs'. It's the opposite problem in Ontario - they have too many teams or too many that are 'weak' (OUA Mid-East). Mac is the only real school with any size that could have a team.
Four more teams in Quebec would be interesting as OUA East could become their own conference and break away from the OUA all together. Not likely to happen.
On a positive note - we haven't seen anyone leave in a decade, but have had a few added - at least it's growth (albeit slow).
