Hope everyone saw Ken Dearborn’s letter to the editor on the Whig-Standard website, Frontenacs’ longtime fans abandoned.
It feels like the new Frontenacs fan that is being courted is not really interested in hockey per se. Hockey is secondary, almost an afterthought.
I have no doubt that first-class events such as The Tragically Hip and Avril Lavigne concerts will fill the new facility. But the major tenant, the Kingston Frontenacs, do not measure up to that standard, and they haven’t for a long time. Small crowds at the Memorial Centre were not a reflection of the arena. They were a reflection of the product on the ice. As Whig-Standard reader Brian Cook wrote in a letter to the editor (“Expect more empty seats,” Feb. 28), the Frontenacs will not suddenly see an attendance increase just because they are playing their games in a new building.
In short, I believe Springer and Rosen have abandoned the faithful and are courting an audience that will not buy an inferior product … The “Krock Pot” will attract diminishing hockey crowds as the novelty wears off … making the same 35-minute drive to park in a free parking lot, buy a cheaper ticket and see better hockey at Belleville’s Yardmen Arena, where the Bulls play, is looking pretty fine to me.
Well said, except just as no one puts Baby in a corner, no one dares speak truth and reason to Doug Springer. We’re all supposed to shut up and just bask in his aura. It’s great that the Whig-Standard is finally getting religion about the godawful Springer and Mav regime and the sweet set-up they have scored at taxpayers’ expense, only aren’t you supposed to warn people about how they’re going to get screwed, not wait until they’re screwed?
