In one of the least surprising decisions in recent Western Hockey League history, the league announced Friday morning that the Winnipeg Ice are no more.
The team has been purchased by an ownership group led by businessman David White, and will be moving to Wenatchee, Wash. for the start of the 2023-24 season.
The new team will play in the U.S. Division and will be known as the Wenatchee Wild, taking the moniker of the BCHL franchise in the community..
Right off the hop, the major issue the franchise had in Winnipeg is solved. Wenatchee -- population 35,405 and located two hours east of Seattle -- already has the Town Toyota Centre open and running since August of 2008. The 4,300-seat arena is easily up to WHL standards and will offer a massive upgrade over the heavily undersized Wayne Fleming Arena the team used to play in.
The move will mark the third of its kind for the franchise after they relocated from Kootenay, B.C. prior to the 2019-20 season.
The four seasons played in Winnipeg were done so with the promise of a new arena to be built on the outskirts of the city, but Ice CEO Greg Fettes said in a Twitter statement that things just couldn’t come together.
“Today is a difficult day for (Ice GM Matt Cockell) and I,” Fettes wrote. “We have invested significant time and money in bringing the best possible major junior hockey product to the Winnipeg market. However, despite our success in building the organization, we were unable to confirm our ability to build a new facility in Winnipeg that met the WHL standards on a timeline that was acceptable to the WHL.”
The situation is one that has been buzzing around the league all last season and came to a head when Winnipeg media reported that the team had been fined $500,000 due to their inability to find a new and better arena.
The move takes away what had been, quite frankly, an embarrassing look for the WHL.
The Ice had put together one of the best teams in the league over the four years in Winnipeg, including a record-setting 57-10-1-0 mark in 2022-23 that saw them reach the Eastern Conference final before falling to the Seattle Thunderbirds.
Throughout that run, though, they played to around 1,600 fans on average, far and away the lowest attendance in the league.
By comparison, the Moose Jaw Warriors averaged around 2,884 fans per game in 2022-23, while the team from the smallest community in the league, the Swift Current Broncos, averaged around 1,837 fans.
The move to Wenatchee gives the WHL balanced conferences, with 11 teams in each, including the Warriors, Regina Pats, Saskatoon Blades, Brandon Wheat Kings and Prince Albert Raiders in the East Division.
