heritage, sport tourism and canadian junior hockey: nostalgia for social experience or sport place?

20

Click here to load reader

Upload: jay

Post on 15-Apr-2017

214 views

Category:

Documents


1 download

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: Heritage, sport tourism and Canadian junior hockey: nostalgia for social experience or sport place?

This article was downloaded by: [Newcastle University]On: 21 December 2014, At: 00:29Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Journal of Sport & TourismPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjto20

Heritage, sport tourism and Canadianjunior hockey: nostalgia for socialexperience or sport place?Daniel S. Mason a , Gregory H. Duquette a & Jay Scherer aa University of AlbertaPublished online: 03 Aug 2006.

To cite this article: Daniel S. Mason , Gregory H. Duquette & Jay Scherer (2005) Heritage, sporttourism and Canadian junior hockey: nostalgia for social experience or sport place?, Journal ofSport & Tourism, 10:4, 253-271, DOI: 10.1080/14775080600805481

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14775080600805481

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoeveror howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to orarising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Page 2: Heritage, sport tourism and Canadian junior hockey: nostalgia for social experience or sport place?

Heritage, sport tourism and Canadian

junior hockey: nostalgia for social

experience or sport place?

Daniel S. MasonUniversity of Alberta

Gregory H. DuquetteUniversity of Alberta

Jay SchererUniversity of Alberta

..............................................................................................................................

Abstract

North American cities, working with their respective sports franchises, have built new facilities whichhave deliberately embraced romanticized notions of their sporting pasts. In this instance, the nostalgiaexperience is tied closely to the facility itself. However, not all sports facilities have embraced heritageelements in their design and used heritage as a vehicle for nostalgia sport tourism. Facilities built formajor junior hockey in Canada have tended more toward functionality, with an absence of nostalgiafrom the place-experience of attendees. This article reviews the operations of junior hockey and itstrends of arena construction over the past decade, in order to determine why this sport has notexplicitly sought to use its arenas for nostalgia tourism development purposes. It is argued thatnostalgia for junior hockey is reflected in nostalgia for social experience (the act of attending agame) and not nostalgia for sport place or artefact (the hockey arena itself). However, nostalgia forsport place does exist for hockey when considering the sport as part of Canadian identity, where themanifestation of nostalgia for hockey fans takes the game back to its outdoor roots.

Keywords: Heritage, Hockey, Nostalgia, Sport Tourism

Corresponding address: Dan Mason, W1-16G Van Vliet, Faculty of Physical Education & Recreation,

University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada. T6G 2H9. Email: [email protected].

Journal of Sport Tourism 10(4), 2005, 253–271

...........................................................................................................................................................

Journal of Sport Tourism ISSN 1477-5085 print/ISSN 1029-5399 online/05/040253-19# 2005 Sports Tourism International Council http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals

DOI: 10.1080/14775080600805481

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

00:

29 2

1 D

ecem

ber

2014

Page 3: Heritage, sport tourism and Canadian junior hockey: nostalgia for social experience or sport place?

Cities continue to position themselves as place products in the global marketplace,as they move away from traditional industries and focus on service industries(Fainstein & Campbell, 2002). As a result, tourism has emerged as a criticalmeans for cities to attain competitive advantage (Kotler, Haider & Rein, 1993).Within this context, cities have placed emphasis on the celebration and conservationof artefacts and buildings associated with their respective communities, often in aneffort to distinguish themselves from their competitors. In doing so, some cities‘have highlighted historical events or even mythical and fictional associations tocompete in an increasingly symbolic place economy’ (Smith, 2005:217). Thus,history has become a strategic tool for tourism development. Ashworth &Tunbridge (1990:24) have claimed that the concept of heritage accurately capturesthe point at which the preservation of the past for its intrinsic value changes to aprocess whereby history becomes a resource for a city: ‘History has becomeheritage, heritage has become an urban resource, and this resource supplies amajor ‘history industry’, which shapes not merely the form but the functioningand purpose of the “commodified” city’ (Ashworth & Tunbridge, 1990:1–2).

Heritage can be broadly defined as ‘natural and cultural environments, encom-passing of landscapes, historic places, sites and built environments as well as intan-gible assets such as collections, past and continuing cultural experiences, knowledgeand living experiences’ (McKercher, Ho & du Cros, 2005:541). Where these heri-tage elements have the capacity to draw visitors from outside of a given community,they become opportunities for tourism development. More specifically, opportu-nities to incorporate heritage elements into sport and leisure pursuits havebecome a means for cities to differentiate themselves from one another. Examplesmight be where visitors attend sports facilities with historical elements such asfamous stadia, museums and halls of fame.

According to Gibson (1998:49), sport tourism can be considered ‘leisure-basedtravel that takes individuals temporarily outside of their home communities to par-ticipate in physical activities, to watch physical activities, or to venerate attractionsassociated with physical activities.’ In this context, built heritage, such as landmarksand buildings (Beriatos & Gospodini, 2004) associated with a given sport becometourist destinations unto themselves. As a result, Gibson more recently refined herdefinition, and noted that ‘there are three types of sport tourism: a) active sporttourism where participants travel to take part in sport; b) event sport tourismwhere participants travel to watch sport; and c) nostalgia sport tourism where par-ticipants visit sports related attractions such as halls of fame, famous stadia, orsports-themed cruises’ (Gibson, 2003:207).

However, while sport tourism has become a legitimate field of scholarly study,the third element of sport tourism remains the least studied. Thus, ‘nostalgiasport tourism is certainly a topic that requires both descriptive and explanatoryresearch’ (Gibson, 1998:67). This may be due to the fact that, unlike other heritageelements within cities, built heritage associated with sport has not always beenafforded the same levels of attention and appreciation as other forms of built heri-tage. In an examination of the preservation of built heritage in Britain, Wood (2005)argued that ‘decades of under-appreciation have, however, taken their toll on thebuilt heritage of sport. Because of the lack of understanding of the resource,limited conservation strategies are in place and as a result, sport heritage isinadequately managed’ (Wood, 2005:138).

In North America, an increasing demand for nostalgia sport tourism, a lack ofpreservation of historic sports facilities, and a desire by the owners of sports

254 Mason et al .

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

00:

29 2

1 D

ecem

ber

2014

Page 4: Heritage, sport tourism and Canadian junior hockey: nostalgia for social experience or sport place?

franchises to have new facilities with modern, revenue-generating amenities, haveresulted in the proliferation of hybrid facilities – new, state-of-the-art structuresthat incorporate historical elements into their design. For example, facilities builtfor major league baseball over the past decade have undergone a process of ‘reen-chantment’ where the allure of classic, long-since demolished ballparks have beensimulated to exploit their commercial appeal (Ritzer & Stillman, 2001:100). Fol-lowing the financial success of the first acknowledged ‘retro’ ballpark built in1992, Oriole Park at Camden Yards (Friedman, Andrews & Silk, 2004), 13 newdowntown major league facilities have been built that have incorporated someelements of the past (Rosensweig, 2005:xi).

In sum North American sports franchises, working with their respective cities,have built new facilities to attract visitors from out of town, many of which havedeliberately embraced romanticized notions of their sporting pasts. This hasresulted in the construction of ‘retro’ stadiums and arenas, facilities whichattempt to recapture or create nostalgic memories of their respective sports. Inthis instance, site-based nostalgia is tied closely to the tourism experience, andthe facility itself confers its own element of nostalgia, and can be as much a drawas the sporting event itself. However, not all sports facilities built for sport fran-chises in North America have embraced heritage elements in their design andused heritage as a vehicle for nostalgia sport tourism. For example, junior hockeyin Canada has witnessed an arena construction boom over the past decade but,for the most part, these arenas have incorporated few historical elements. Facilitiesbuilt for major junior hockey in Canada have tended more toward functionality,with an absence of nostalgia from the place-experience of attendees. Thus, thepurpose of this paper is to review the operations of junior hockey and its trendsof arena construction over the past decade, in order to determine why this sporthas not explicitly sought to use its arenas for nostalgia tourism developmentpurposes.

Following an overview of hockey in Canada and the junior hockey industry, therecent growth in popularity of junior hockey and the emergence of new arenas isdescribed. This phenomenon is then compared to the major leagues, and both econ-omic and cultural explanations for the lack of incorporation of nostalgic elementsinto new arena construction are provided. The literature of heritage and nostalgiasport tourism is then revisited to shed light on why arenas built to host CanadianHockey League franchises have not realized their potential as a destination for nos-talgia sport tourism.

Hockey in Canada

Over the past two decades, elite professional ice hockey has had a tumultuousrelationship with the Canadian public, witnessed by two major work stoppages(one resulting in the cancellation of the entire 2004–05 National Hockey Leagueseason), the exodus of two Canadian franchises to the United States, and an unsuc-cessful attempt to publicly support Canadian-based National Hockey league (NHL)franchises (Scherer & Jackson, 2004). However, the popularity of hockey remainsstrong across the country, and the links between the sport, community andCanadian nationalism remain more relevant than ever. For example, since theresumption of operations of the NHL in the fall of 2005, teams in Canadiancities have been playing in front of near-capacity crowds (Bernstein, 2005).

Heritage, Sport Tourism and Canadian Junior Hockey 255

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

00:

29 2

1 D

ecem

ber

2014

Page 5: Heritage, sport tourism and Canadian junior hockey: nostalgia for social experience or sport place?

In addition, interest in hockey played at other levels remains strong across thecountry. An example of this is the success of major junior hockey – The CanadianHockey League – an elite, age restricted developmental league that produces themajority of NHL players.

The Canadian Hockey League (CHL) has experienced unprecedented prosperity,with record attendance levels, franchises numbers and profits (Duquette & Mason,2004). As measured by paid attendance figures, it has become the number onespectator sport in Canada (CHL, 2005). A major reason behind this growth hasbeen the ability of the league and team owners to promote their players in theirhost communities as examples of young Canadians chasing the dream of playingprofessionally, where hockey has been described as a ‘common passion’ amongstmany Canadians (Dryden & MacGregor, 1989). Most significant, their productis linked with the notions of hockey as an integral component of Canadian com-munity as hosting a CHL team legitimizes their city status (Duquette & Mason,2004).

Like their NHL counterparts, cities that host junior hockey teams in Canada typi-cally act as regional hubs for smaller, satellite communities, and high-calibre sport-ing competitions can be a draw for visitors seeking to come into the city. Asexplained by Dryden & MacGregor (1989), visitors travel from smaller centres inthe province of Saskatchewan to Saskatoon, SK, to watch hockey, but also toshop ‘in Saskatoon’s bigger and better stores, eating in its more numerous andvaried restaurants, using all of its bigger city’s amenities’ (35). As a result tourismrelated to hockey game attendance can represent substantial revenues for localcommunities. For example, it has been estimated that 20% of attendees at NHLgame come from outside of the host city’s Metropolitan Statistical Area, whichresults in a per-team average of US$13,914,000 in annual spending from thisgroup (Rappaport & Wilkerson, 2001).

The Canadian Hockey League

CHL franchises have been community focal points for both visitors and local resi-dents for decades; the CHL’s roots in Canada date back to its origins as part of theamateur hockey system during the early 20th century (Howell, 2001; Kidd &MacFarlane, 1972). As part of the amateur system, junior hockey represented thealternative to the growing professional game, a game that excluded many of thesmaller Canadian cities outside of Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver. Itwas after the Second World War that the amateur hockey system shifted its focusby becoming a feeder system for the developing (and professional) NationalHockey League (NHL). Subsequently, the NHL began sponsoring amateur juniorteams and assumed ownership rights to these future professional players underthe age of 20. Until 1967, NHL teams managed junior hockey teams in differentparts of Canada.

Junior hockey operated as part of this professional hockey cartel until the NHL’sexpansion in 1967. In the years that followed, the NHL’s dominance over juniorhockey began to diminish, and competition between NHL teams for playersincreased. The subsequent development of the rival professional World HockeyAssociation (WHA) during the 1970s further increased the demand for players.More importantly in terms of this paper, local ownership of junior teams becamemore predominant and more Canadian communities became involved in hosting

256 Mason et al .

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

00:

29 2

1 D

ecem

ber

2014

Page 6: Heritage, sport tourism and Canadian junior hockey: nostalgia for social experience or sport place?

local teams. What emerged was the formation of the Ontario Hockey League(OHL), Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) and Western HockeyLeague (WHL), three regional leagues that would comprise the Canadian HockeyLeague. Today the league is comprised of 58 Franchises, including 9 which playin bordering US states.

Thus, although junior hockey has taken different forms over the decades, it hasremained an integral part of the communities that host teams. Junior hockey’srole in the development of Canadian communities has been well documented(Gruneau & Whitson, 1993; Nauright & White, 1996); in some cases, fansupport of teams crosses multiple generations within families. In the case ofmany Canadian cities, the links between team and community were sufficientenough to facilitate the construction of hockey arenas in which the team couldplay, a development that signalled their progress in an effort to attract outsidecapital investment and new immigrants (Gruneau & Whitson, 1993). In manycases, a successful local team came to represent a broader local prosperity.

During the 2004–2005 season, CHL franchises were located in markets thatranged from smaller regional centres of less than 50,000 people (Prince Albert,SK; Val D’Or, QC) to larger metropolitan areas with populations exceeding 2million (Toronto, ON; Vancouver, BC). While junior hockey represents a culturallink that exists within Canadian communities of all sizes, the league’s roots,however, are in mid-size Canadian centres. According to the CHL, CHL teamsare the premiere sports/entertainment attraction in 43 of its 49 Canadianmarkets (NHL in five markets, Canadian Football League in one). Canadiancities with CHL teams represent 71% of the nation’s total population (CHL,2005). The CHL has truly become a pan-Canadian institution, one that extendsin communities from coast to coast (Hodge, 2005). More than 9 million fansattended games during 2003–04, a figure that represents 45% more fans thanattended Canadian NHL teams that season (CHL, 2005). According the league’swebsite, the CHL is currently the largest hockey league in the world, consistingof 58 teams in all ten Canadian provinces (and five American states) (CHL,2005). As an indication of the CHL’s growing popularity, the league has added15 new teams over the last 12 years.

A foundational characteristic of the CHL’s success that helps to distinguish itfrom other sport and entertainment options in their communities relates to theways in which fans connect with their teams. First, players are not seen asprofessionals, and the CHL is seen as a ‘stepping stone’ to the professionalranks. In addition, age restrictions often mean that players relocating to playfor junior teams assimilate into the community, by billeting with local familiesand continuing their education at local high schools and post-secondary insti-tutions. Thus, fans can develop strong ties to players and teams, despite theturnover of players on a year-to-year basis and the increasing emphasis teamsplace on commercial elements of the game. This sense of continuity withincommunities has allowed CHL teams to conjure nostalgic sporting sentimentswhere young athletes compete for minimal financial gain and for the ‘love ofthe game,’ while pursuing a potential career in the NHL. Thus, the CHL hasbeen able to successfully leverage its nostalgic links to amateurism and sense ofcommunity (Gains, 2004).

The focus of league and team operations has continued to move further awayfrom player development and more towards revenue generation. The commissionerof the CHL himself, David Branch, has acknowledged that the business concerns of

Heritage, Sport Tourism and Canadian Junior Hockey 257

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

00:

29 2

1 D

ecem

ber

2014

Page 7: Heritage, sport tourism and Canadian junior hockey: nostalgia for social experience or sport place?

the CHL have taken precedence over player development (Houston, 1997). Thegrowing professional image of CHL (Gains, 2004) has coincided with expansioninto larger markets and their suburbs, and has seen the league return to largerCanadian cities such as Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. The CHL has alsorecently targeted larger suburban markets. For example, CHL expansion franchisesawarded to the cities of Brampton and Mississauga during the late 1990s arecharacterized by their suburban location, a proximal distance to the media centreof Toronto, and, most significantly, their modern 5000þ seat arenas. Forexample, according to the commissioner of the QMJHL, a new franchise in thatleague would cost a prospective team owner $3M. He was clear to state that thefinancial outlay would not be sufficient however, as the prospective marketwould also have to present a ‘suitable arena deal’ (Canadian Press, 2004).

Like the major leagues, some CHL teams (North Bay, ON; Niagara Falls, ON;Sherbrooke, QQ) have relocated to cities more willing to accommodate the team.For example, during the 2001–02 season, the North Bay franchise was purchasedand moved to Saginaw, MI, after the city had rejected a team proposal for the con-struction of a new 5,000 seat arena. The Centennials president was quoted as saying‘It’s also a sad reality that, at the end of the day, North Bay [pop. 50,000], as a com-munity wasn’t able to support a franchise’ (Yzerman, 2001:C1). Local grassrootscampaigns to save the team failed as residents worried about becoming a ‘no-name Canadian city’ (Holmes, 2002).

Increasingly, the issue of competitiveness has not been limited to the teams them-selves; the cities that host franchises have come to recognize the importance ofhaving a facility for other tourism development initiatives related to eventhosting, such as concerts, conventions, and trade shows. CHL teams play at least36 home games during the season, plus any playoff games. In this scenario, thejunior hockey franchise is the critical anchor tenant for a venue that can generateadditional tourism revenues from additional events.

The CHL Arena Construction Boom

A desire to increase gate revenues for teams, and generate new tourism and devel-opment for cities, has led to an arena construction boom in many CHL commu-nities. Like their major league counterparts, the owners and operators of juniorhockey franchises and their respective communities have developed a standardfor what constitutes a state-of-the-art facility. This would include a seating capacityupwards of 5,000, luxury suites, accessible parking (preferably pay-parking), andpreferential treatment for the selection of home dates. In addition, improved conces-sions (i.e., the number available and choices for consumers) and a restaurant orother upscale dining are considered an asset (Deloitte & Touche, 2005). These ame-nities drive team and arena revenues far above those that could be generated in thetraditional, memorial or post-war arenas that housed junior teams. Table 1 containsa list of recent arena constructions for Canada-based CHL teams. As one can see,the standard for a new arena has become 5,000 seats, 15–30 luxury suites, anaming rights agreement and, most recently, an in-arena restaurant or otherdining area. By way of comparison, two franchises in Saskatchewan, Moose Jaw(the 3,146-seat Civic Centre Arena built in 1960) and Prince Albert (3,210-seatArt Hauser Arena built in 1971), both play in arenas that have significantly fewerrevenue generating amenities. In 2004, average attendance was only 73 per cent

258 Mason et al .

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

00:

29 2

1 D

ecem

ber

2014

Page 8: Heritage, sport tourism and Canadian junior hockey: nostalgia for social experience or sport place?

Table 1. Canada-Based CHL Cities/Franchises with Facilities Constructed After 1995

Franchise (city)Market

sizeArena

capacityArena name �naming

rights agreementYearbuilt

In citysince:

Luxurysuites (S) club

seats (C)Arena

restaurant?

Acadie Bathurst 23,935 3,700 K.C. Irving Centre� 1996 1998 24(S)Barrie 148,480 4,200 Molson Centre� 1995 1995 26(S) YBrampton 4,682,897 5,000 Powerade Centre� 1998 1998 28(S) YChilliwack 69,776 5,000 Prospera Centre� 2004 2006 12(S)Guelph 117,344 4,686 Guelph Sports & Ent. Complex 2000 1991 31(S) YKamloops 86,491 5,158 Interior Savings Centre� 1995 1984 10(S) LoungeKelowna 147,739 6,007 Prospera Place� 1999 1995 31(S)/1000(C) YKootenay (Cranbrook) 24,275 4,264 Rec Plex 2000 1998 16(S)/19(C) YLondon 432,451 9,100 Labatt Centre� 2002 1968 38(S)/1000(C) YMississauga 4,682,897 5,800 Hershey Centre� 1998 1998 27(S)/1120(C) LoungePrince George 85,035 5,582 CN Centre� 1995 1994 12(S) LoungeSarnia 88,331 5,000 Sarnia Sports & Ent. Complex 1998 1994 43(S) YSault Ste. Marie 78,908 4,590 TBA 2006 1972 13(S) YSt. John’s 172,918 6,250 Mile One Stadium� 2001 2005 35(S) Y

Herita

ge,

Sport

Tourism

andCanadianJuniorHock

ey259

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

00:

29 2

1 D

ecem

ber

2014

Page 9: Heritage, sport tourism and Canadian junior hockey: nostalgia for social experience or sport place?

capacity in Moose Jaw and 85 per cent in Prince Albert (Wolfe, 2004). In the case ofthese smaller cities, their facilities are doubly limited by a lack of amenities and alack of seating capacity.

However in this new arena construction boom, an increased capacity is notalways as crucial as other revenue drivers within arenas. For example, Sault Ste.Marie, Ontario’s new arena will only hold 500 more spectators than its predecessor,the Sault Memorial Gardens; the original, built in 1949, was considered outdated.Despite the addition of some luxury suites in 1993, the Gardens was still deemedobsolete. The new arena will contain the necessary revenue-generating amenitiessuch as luxury boxes and a restaurant/bar to increase profits and potentiallyincrease tourism revenues.

The presence of new arenas, even in markets that might seem too small to supporta franchise, provides team owners and the cities that construct arenas with revenuestability. For example, when the city of Sarnia, ON, built the Sarnia Sports andEntertainment Centre in 1998, attendance for the local CHL team increased from2,000 to 4,200 per game, and the venue was able to host between 90 and 110events annually during its first few years of operation. In contrast, the Sault Ste.Marie, ON, Memorial Gardens, built in 1949, typically hosts 45–50 total eventseach year (the populations of Sarnia and Sault Ste. Marie are 88,331 and 78,908,respectively) (Deloitte & Touche, 2005). Attendance for the London, ON,Knights increased from approximately 3,000 per game to over 8,100 when itsnew arena opened in 2002 (Gedge, 2005). However, the cost of building such facili-ties is beyond the means of most team owners, who must rely on cities and otherlevels of government to finance construction (costs typically range from $20M–$40M), or develop more elaborate public–private partnerships in order to affordto deal with costs. As a result, communities have a strong hand in determiningarena characteristics, including size, amenities and location.

An example of a city interested in using a new arena to compete with other com-munities for tourism and economic development is Kingston, ON. According to thebusiness plan for that city’s proposed 5,000-seat arena, or Large Venue Entertain-ment Centre (LVEC), ‘a new LVEC will give Kingston a competitive advantage overother municipalities. The construction of a first-class LVEC on the waterfront willhave a positive impact on the citizens of Kingston and on the city’s image as awhole, as perceived by individuals and businesses outside of Kingston [emphasisadded]’ (Gedge, 2005:7). For tourism development purposes, the proposed arenawas considered an ‘added attractor’: ‘A sport and entertainment centre is regardedas an “added attractor” in helping increase tourism. This is particularly true in caseswhere a significant component of the tourism industry involves visitors who arefriends or family of local residents’ (Gedge, 2005:12). Proponents of the new facilityprojected that 10% of the 300,000 attendees for the proposed arena would be tour-ists, adding $8.1M to the local economy each year (Gedge, 2005). Arena supportersrecognized that such facilities alone will not necessarily drive tourism development;rather, the arena would act as a catalyst for broader development, which includestourism (Task Force, 2004).

Since 1996 in the province of Ontario alone, six new arenas have been built(Barrie, Brampton Sarnia, Mississauga, Guelph, and London), three older facilitieshave been substantially modernized (Kitchener, Peterborough, and Owen Sound),two cities are developing new arenas (Oshawa and Sault Ste. Marie), one hasproposed an arena project (Kingston), and two cities seeking OHL franchises(Burlington and North Bay) are developing proposals. This represents twelve of

260 Mason et al .

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

00:

29 2

1 D

ecem

ber

2014

Page 10: Heritage, sport tourism and Canadian junior hockey: nostalgia for social experience or sport place?

the 17 Canada-based OHL franchises and two prospective OHL communities(Deloitte & Touche, 2005).

Thus, new arenas built in CHL cities have increased the profitability of juniorhockey franchises while increasing exposure for cities, and allowing facilities tohost more events to draw tourism dollars. The discussion above suggests thatCHL cities have been clamouring to build new, state-of-the-art facilities. Thesehave been built to host CHL teams and also for numerous events that cities hopewill confer a competitive advantage over other cities. However as mentionedearlier, very little seems to differentiate these new facilities from one another. Theabsence of elements distinguishing these arenas from one another is curious, anddecidedly different from recent facility construction at the major league level, par-ticularly in baseball and American football. In the latter case, facilities are deliber-ately developed with unique differentiating characteristics. Typically, this involvesmatching the physical characteristics of the area surrounding the facility, and/orincorporating historical elements of the community and sport itself. The followingsections review facility construction in other sporting contexts in North America,and then provide suggestions as to why CHL arenas have not embraced nostalgiasport tourism.

The Major League Facility Boom

As mentioned above, although the construction of arenas for junior hockey inCanada mirrors that of the recent growth in sports facility construction acrossNorth America, besides seating capacity, there is one fundamental differencebetween the two. Many recent constructions at the major-league level have madea conscious effort to incorporate nostalgic elements into the design of stadiums.As explained by Ritzer & Stillman (2001), stadiums built through the 1960s and1980s were ‘rationalized, multiuse stadiums characterized by synthetic grass,fixed roofs as shelter from inclement weather, and huge seating capacities’ (101).However, in the early 1990s, stadium design began to change.

Arguably the first major-league facility to do so was Oriole Park at CamdenYards (OPCY), a stadium that deliberately attempted to blend in with the industrialarea surrounding the stadium site. The facility also took on characteristics of his-toric baseball stadiums, including an asymmetrical playing surface, and openbeam construction. This facility was built with similar characteristics (such asstyle and colouring of exterior brickwork) to match neighbouring buildings thathad been constructed decades earlier (Richmond, 1995). According to Ritzer &Stillman (2001), despite their deliberate uniqueness, retro facilities have a greatdeal in common:

The simulation of a classic ballpark includes the choice of a downtown locationthat, where possible, uses the city as a backdrop for the stadium, bricks and steelfor building materials, a smaller capacity, asymmetrical dimensions, intention-ally singular playing fields, a grass playing surface, and sundry cosmetictouches ranging from the seat-backs to the paint scheme (105).

Retro facilities have not been limited to baseball, however. Another example isConseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, IN, a venue designed to host the IndianaPacers of the National Basketball Association that recreates the ambience ofolder basketball gymnasia. Facility designers, Ellerbe Becket:

Heritage, Sport Tourism and Canadian Junior Hockey 261

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

00:

29 2

1 D

ecem

ber

2014

Page 11: Heritage, sport tourism and Canadian junior hockey: nostalgia for social experience or sport place?

focused on delivering an environment that evokes the sights, sounds and ‘feel’ ofestablished sports cathedrals such as Notre Dame Stadium and Lambeau Field.Exposed girders, arched windows and wooden signs pay homage to Indiana’sbasketball heritage. Fans know they’re in basketball heaven from the momentthey walk inside. (Ellerbe Becket, 2005)

The financial success of OPCY led to a spate of copy-cat constructions, alike intheir deliberate uniqueness and attempts to recapture nostalgic elements associatedwith baseball and the cities and neighbourhoods hosting the franchises playingthere. This includes Jacobs Field in Cleveland, OH, and Turner Field in Atlanta,GA, in baseball. Since the opening of OPCY, a total of 13 new stadiums incorpor-ating heritage elements have been constructed in the US alone (Rosensweig, 2005).A key element to these new facilities was the development of the facility itself as adestination for baseball fans and other tourists, especially attendees who sought torelive a sport’s heritage and could no longer make pilgrimages to long-demolishedfacilities from the past. As a result, attending a baseball game in Baltimore could beas much about celebrating baseball’s past as witnessing the Orioles play a visitingteam, and catering to a new breed of nostalgia sport tourist.

The Absence of Nostalgia in New CHL Arenas

In contrast, junior hockey arenas are different. New facilities, while incorporatingelements of hockey’s past (for example, some have displays with team photos andother artefacts), for the most part feature more homogenous elements. Teamsand communities are more interested in facilitating the comfort of the spectatorrather than deliberately eliciting nostalgic experiences for attendees. This is inspite of the fact that junior or other high-level amateur hockey teams have playedin these same communities for upwards of a century, and hockey has remained acultural institution throughout Canada. So what explains this absence of nostalgicelements in the construction and operation of new junior hockey arenas? Some sug-gestions are offered below, followed by a discussion of these issues in the context ofheritage and hockey in Canada.

Market Munificence

One reason relates to the rapid growth in the popularity and profitability of juniorhockey across Canada – teams making money have less interest in looking for newways to distinguish themselves from both competing teams and competing enter-tainment options within their respective communities. Instead, franchises pusharena construction onto local policy agendas in an attempt to access some of therevenues to be accrued from a new arena. In addition, the rapid proliferation ofnewer arenas has not resulted in cities seeking new designs to distinguish themfrom one another; in other words, communities have simply focussed on obtainingthe necessary resources to facilitate the construction of new arenas and remainequal to their perceived competitors – other cities that can attract tourismdollars. Thus there has not been a desire to look for new and innovative ways ofattracting attendees, such as developing heritage elements into the facility todraw in more spectators. One would think that a decline in interest in the juniorhockey product would result in a greater interest on the part of team owners andcities to seek to differentiate the product; however, the popularity of junior

262 Mason et al .

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

00:

29 2

1 D

ecem

ber

2014

Page 12: Heritage, sport tourism and Canadian junior hockey: nostalgia for social experience or sport place?

hockey has not created such a scenario. In addition, in an effort to keep up with per-ceived competitors, cities have focussed on modern amenities in their new arenas.

Focus on Revenue Generation

Junior hockey teams have continued to thrive in cities that have built new facilities;however, teams still struggle in those communities that rely on antiquated arenas.The desire to access these new revenue streams may have resulted in a focus onsimply providing the requisite seating, luxury suites, and other revenue-generators,rather than any effort to focus on unique arena qualities. In other words, teams incommunities are simply happy to get access to these new facilities, and seem to beless interested in arenas that somehow distinguish themselves from their rival teams’facilities. In addition, incorporating nostalgic elements (such as a brick arenafacade, an organist or painted wooden seats, for example) result in more expensesthat communities and/or teams may be unwilling to pay for.

Public Funding and Accountability

Another critical consideration is the ways in which arenas are used outside ofhockey. While teams act as the primary tenants and anchors for the facilities them-selves, cities that publicly finance these facilities must seek out additional events tohost in order to remain financially viable. For example, cities consider the presenceof newer, commodious arenas critical to drawing musical acts that otherwise wouldnot perform in a given city, which helps to generate arena revenues on dates notused by the hockey team (Mason & Duquette, 2004). As a result, teams do nothave the same control over the characteristics of the facility itself that you see inmajor league sports, particularly the NFL and major league baseball. In otherwords, arenas must be built to host other entertainment acts, and arena designmust be able to accommodate a variety of different activities, which might be com-promised by the incorporation of nostalgic elements that serve only the local hockeyteam. In contrast, facilities built for sports franchises at the major league level havetended to be designed for one franchise in a specific sport.

Hockey in Canada: Nostalgia for Sport Place and Social Experience

The previous section has suggested some reasons for the lack of nostalgia sporttourism elements in CHL arenas. The following discussion revisits notions ofhockey and Canadian identity and situates the sport within the literature on nostal-gia sport tourism, heritage and crisis. Perhaps another point of comparison might beto compare junior hockey with other sports that have characteristics more similar tojunior hockey in terms of community size, and team–community relationships.Minor league baseball teams have had storied histories in their respective townsin the United States, feature young, determined athletes who seek to advanceto the major leagues, and market themselves as affordable, family-friendly enter-tainment. Yet minor league baseball has witnessed a stadium construction revivalthat also introduces community-specific nostalgic elements that are lacking intheir junior hockey counterparts (Johnson, 2000; Kraus, 2003).

Heritage, Sport Tourism and Canadian Junior Hockey 263

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

00:

29 2

1 D

ecem

ber

2014

Page 13: Heritage, sport tourism and Canadian junior hockey: nostalgia for social experience or sport place?

In communities across Canada, attending hockey games remains a focal point forsocial activity, where attending a game can remain the thing to do on a cold, winternight (particularly in the absence of other entertainment options). This practice hasremained ingrained within local communities since the advent of memorial and otherpublic arenas built over the past decades (Gruneau & Whitson, 1993). However,while parents might bundle their children up and take them to the games today,the experience itself is far different. The cold, uncomfortable seats and stale cupsof hot chocolate have been replaced by clothed, padded seats and varied menuoptions, where the arena experience itself bears little resemblance to past years.

However unlike minor league baseball, older arenas are not celebrated or delib-erately recreated, and are quickly torn down in favour of new, clean (and indistin-guishable) facilities that can generate revenues for teams, arena managementcompanies, and/or the cities that ante up the resources to build them. This wouldsuggest that the experience that fans have, and the draw to the facilities themselves,relates strongly to the popularity of the hockey as a local cultural experience, but thevenue itself is not a draw within said cultural experience. Instead, fans are drawn toincreased amenities which add to the viewing experience, but are not a part of thenostalgic experience itself.

There has been some research in the sport tourism literature to support thisnotion. Notably, Fairley (2003) argued that heritage-based tourism need not relyon place or artefact, and that:

active sport tourism (travel to take part in a sport event) and event sport tourism(travel to spectate at a sport event) – may engender memories that motivate sub-sequent sport tourism, and that those memories become meaningful and motiv-ating because of the social experiences through which they are engendered. (285)

In this case, the nostalgic experience is not associated with the arena where thehockey game is played; instead it occurs in the ritual and social experience associ-ated with game attendance. In other words, attending a junior hockey game on aSaturday night in a CHL community – going out for dinner, picking up a friendor family member, wearing a team jersey, etc. – confers a nostalgic experiencedue to the act of attending, and is not due to any similarities (or lack thereof) associ-ated with the venue in which the social experience occurs.

So if attendees at junior hockey games experience a sense of nostalgia associatedwith the social experience of game attendance, and not the venue itself, what makesmajor league sports and minor league baseball different from junior hockey inCanada? A question remains as to why junior hockey arenas have not followedthe same path as their major league counterparts in terms of trying to captureelements of a sport’s heritage in the physical setting that games have been played.In order to address this, the discussion turns to the evolution of hockey and its con-nection to Canadian identity in recent years, and explores one prominent exampleof where hockey has attempted to tap into its nostalgic roots.

Hockey in Canada: Crisis and Nostalgia for Sport Place

As Gruneau and Whitson (1993) have noted, hockey remains an integral part ofCanadian everyday experience and an important part of the Canadian collectivememory. Hockey, for better or for worse, acts as both myth and allegory inCanadian culture: an evolving story ‘that Canadians tell themselves about what it

264 Mason et al .

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

00:

29 2

1 D

ecem

ber

2014

Page 14: Heritage, sport tourism and Canadian junior hockey: nostalgia for social experience or sport place?

means to be Canadian’ (Gruneau & Whitson, 1993:13). For example, since theadvent of televised NHL Games on CBC in 1952, the weekly national broadcastsHockey Night in Canada have structured and constituted a significant part of theCanadian cultural experience. Meanwhile, other key sporting moments includingthe 1972 Summit Series – a series of games played between Canadian and Sovietnational teams – and the more recent victories of the Canadian men’s andwomen’s teams at the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics, have been heralded as definingthe character of the nation.

At the NHL level, however, Canadians have been confronted with several inter-related crises over the past 20 years. These include the controversial 1988 trade ofnational hero Wayne Gretzky from the Edmonton Oilers to the Los Angeles Kings(Jackson, 1994), the departure of the Quebec Nordiques and Winnipeg Jets toColorado and Phoenix respectively in the mid-1990s (Scherer, 2001), and theongoing threat related to the potential loss of other small market franchises includ-ing Ottawa, Edmonton and Calgary which ultimately resulted in the proposedsubsidy of Canadian franchises by the federal government in 2000. This proposedsubsidy was greeted with such public venom that it was quickly and embarrassinglywithdrawn by the federal government only three days after it was publicly pro-posed. Such an adverse and hostile reaction revealed a substantial fissure withinthe Canadian imaginary and an unabashed public resentment of the economics ofNHL hockey, including the substantial salaries of NHL players, as un-Canadian(Scherer & Jackson, 2004). Such concerns did not go unnoticed by the NHL officialswho attempted to address and suture this most recent crisis in Canadian identitythrough a tactile resort to nostalgia.

On November 22, 2003, the Edmonton Oilers franchise of the NHL hosted theHeritage Classic, an outdoor hockey game held in Commonwealth Stadium inEdmonton, Alberta. Commonwealth Stadium had been built for the 1978Commonwealth Games, and is used by the Edmonton Eskimos football club ofthe Canadian Football League. 57,167 spectators attended the Heritage Classic,which featured two games, one an exhibition match between ‘old-timers’ playersfrom the Montreal Canadiens and Edmonton Oilers franchises. Notably, all-timegreat player Wayne Gretzky played for his former Oilers team. The second gamewas a regular-season NHL game between the current Oilers and Canadiens fran-chises. ‘The Heritage Classic events in Canada in 2003 offered a more themedand romantic interpretation of the past that generated collective nostalgia, focusingprimarily on Canadian identity’ (Fairley & Gammon, 2005:189).

Positioned as a tourism event, much of the media discourse surrounding activitiestied into notions of Canadianness and nostalgia, with outdoor hockey positioned asthe pure form of the sport (Ramshaw & Hinch, forthcoming). However, what isinteresting is that, in order to stage the game outdoors and capture the spirit ofold-time hockey, the game was held in a football stadium, which had virtually nolinks to the sport of hockey. Osborne (2001) noted that collective memory andsocial cohesion can be nurtured through national narratives situated in symbolicplaces. In the case of the Heritage Classic, the narrative was in a symbolic place(outdoors), but not associated with a recognized venue (a specific hockey arena).Perhaps hosting the game in a football facility allowed the game to represent theoutdoor version of hockey without the clutter that would be associated with a facil-ity with its own hockey history and nostalgic memories.

When viewed in the context of the issues faced by the NHL and professionalhockey in Canada leading up to the hosting of the Heritage Classic, one can see

Heritage, Sport Tourism and Canadian Junior Hockey 265

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

00:

29 2

1 D

ecem

ber

2014

Page 15: Heritage, sport tourism and Canadian junior hockey: nostalgia for social experience or sport place?

how the game would be widely embraced. First, it allowed for the city of Edmontonto celebrate its former players in light of recent threats of the current club to relocateto the US, and more general anxiety caused by the plight of small-market NHL fran-chises and the loss of two Canadian NHL teams who had relocated to US cities(Mason, 2002; Silver, 1996). This follows Hewison, who recognized that ‘Nostalgiais felt most strongly at a time of discontent, anxiety or disappointment, yet the timeswhich we felt nostalgia most keenly were often themselves periods of disturbance’(Hewison, 1987:45). In other words, there was perhaps no better time forCanadians to wax nostalgic about hockey. This is supported by Fairley (2003),who recognized that ‘positive associations of one’s identity within one’s memorymay be used to reinforce or maintain a threatened identity’ (288).

According to Fairley and Gammon (2005), ‘two broad conceptualizations of nos-talgia in sport tourism have been used: nostalgia for sport place or artefact, and nos-talgia for social experience’ (182). While it appears that nostalgia for junior hockeyis reflected in nostalgia for social experience (the act of attending a game) and notnostalgia for sport place or artefact (the hockey arena itself), nostalgia for sportplace does exist for hockey when considering the sport as part of Canadian identity.The success of the Heritage Classic clearly suggests that nostalgia for hockey wasevident in its outdoor version, a mythical place where hockey exists in a purerform. This also helps to explain why new CHL arenas remained devoid of nostalgicelements – the manifestation of nostalgia for hockey fans takes the game back to itsoutdoor roots (Ramshaw & Hinch, forthcoming) and corresponding cultural/social experience, and not to the arena itself.

Another explanatory factor takes us back to the success of the CHL, in compari-son to the NHL in Canada. While the 1990s Canada saw the loss of two NHL fran-chises, threats of other franchises leaving (Edmonton) or going bankrupt (Ottawa),and the emergence of other countries to supply the NHL with playing talent, suchas Europe and former Eastern Bloc countries, the CHL has thrived (Duquette &Mason, 2004). This has resulted in less of a need to rely on the heritage ofhockey at the junior level in order to succeed financially. In addition, heritage is con-sidered something possessed by a specific group: ‘Heritage is mainly sought andtreasured as our own; we strive to keep it out of others we suspect, often withgood reason, of aiming to steal it or spoil it’ (Lowenthal, 1998:x). Canadianswere wary of losing hockey at the NHL level, but did not feel this same threat atthe junior level.

Seen in this way, ‘demand’ for heritage elements of ice hockey was created on amore national level (hockey as a unifying Canadian cultural experience), eventhough the attributes of the experience manifested themselves locally – somewhereon an outdoor rink in Canada. It also fed into notions of hockey as a part of nationalidentity: ‘The nostalgic impulse is an important agency in adjustment to crisis, it is asocial emollient and reinforces national identity when confidence is weakened orthreatened’ (Hewison, 1987:47). Although Canadians yearned for the outdoorversion of hockey, this version was not necessarily associated with a specificplace, such as one community associated with the sport; rather it was a engineeredoutdoor game that featured elements of cold and hardship that the Heritage Classicmanaged to capture in the confines of a massive professional football stadium.Because the outdoor game could be played anywhere, it would not make sensefor any one CHL community to try to lay claim to hockey’s heritage. In this way,an individual CHL community might not gain a competitive advantage by incorpor-ating heritage elements into its arena design.

266 Mason et al .

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

00:

29 2

1 D

ecem

ber

2014

Page 16: Heritage, sport tourism and Canadian junior hockey: nostalgia for social experience or sport place?

Combined with the economic success of the CHL as a whole, a lack of ownershipof heritage elements at the local level also helps to explain the difference betweenjunior hockey in Canada and the minor league baseball system in the US, whichhas openly embraced heritage elements in its marketing, promotion, and stadiumconstruction. This is due in part to the crisis faced by minor league baseball in thepast. In contrast to the growth and success of CHL hockey in Canada, interest inminor league baseball in the US dropped precipitously during the 1970s, goingfrom over 500 franchises nationwide a few decades earlier to only 106 total teamsin 1975 (Kraus, 2003). This created the element of anxiety described by Hewison(1987) above, and echoed by Lowenthal, who noted that ‘heritage growth thusreflects traumas of loss and change and fears of menacing future’ (1998:11). As aresult of its recent resurgence, from a community perspective minor league baseballhas been described being ‘less about baseball than family entertainment, helping todefine a city’s liveability’ (Baade & Sanderson, 1997:471).

Heritage and Crisis in Major League Cities

The above discussion has suggested that nostalgia at the junior hockey level mani-fests itself in the social experience of attending games and that, while nostalgia forsport place exists in hockey, it has predominantly emerged as an outdoor version inthe context of crisis at the NHL level and hockey as part of collective Canadianidentity. The demand for heritage elements of hockey was precipitated at thenational level by the uncertain economic environment faced by Canadian NHLfranchises through the 1990s. However, a final issue needs to be addressed that dis-tinguishes the sport of hockey from other North American sports, where the afore-mentioned ‘menacing future’ faced at the major league level in the United States wasnot related to the financial status of the sports that were being played; rather it wasin the cities that hosted them. Historically, periods of demand for popular nostalgiahave coincided with downturns in economic cycles, most recently during the 1970s(Graham, Ashworth & Tunbridge, 2000). During times of decline there is a ten-dency to glorify and celebrate the past. Thus, in post-industrial cities that haveseen significant economic downturns, there has arisen the need to recall andcelebrate earlier, more bountiful times. This helps to create the demand for heritageas an economic product:

The heritage industry is an attempt to dispel this climate of decline by exploitingthe economic potential of our culture, and it finds a ready market because theperception of decline includes all sorts of insecurities and doubts (which aremore than simply economic) that makes its products especially attractive andreassuring. (Hewison, 1987:9–10)

In the context of sport, heritage can then become a vehicle to create and promoteplace images (Graham, Ashworth & Tunbridge, 2000:157), as pro-growthcoalitions in cities use sports facilities as anchors for broader urban and tourismdevelopment projects. As explained by Delaney & Eckstein (2003):

Declining cities often have powerful local growth coalitions for the same reasonsthat growth cities do not. First, they are older cities with more entrenched poli-tical and economic power structures, which are often reflected in the largenumber of local corporate headquarters. Second, because actual growth is ascarce resource, much is riding on policies that will supposedly generategrowth or at least slow down economic decline (Delaney & Eckstein, 2003:15).

Heritage, Sport Tourism and Canadian Junior Hockey 267

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

00:

29 2

1 D

ecem

ber

2014

Page 17: Heritage, sport tourism and Canadian junior hockey: nostalgia for social experience or sport place?

‘Cities in decline, desperate for some sign of economic and social rejuvenation, areespecially prone to manipulation’ by pro-growth agendas (Euchner, 1993:4). Thiswould also suggest that sport and heritage combine in times of economic downturnto push sports facility projects on the policy agenda. It also helps to explain thewidespread use of retro baseball facilities built in post-industrial cities in theUnited States over the past ten years, as part of broader tourism development initiat-ives, including Baltimore, MD, Cleveland, OH, and St. Louis, MO.

In Baltimore, the city had endured significant hardship and was seen as a city indecline; for example in 1980, it was ranked fifth among 58 cities on a compositemeasure of urban distress, considering factors such as poverty rates, decline inper capita income, and unemployment (Euchner, 1993). ‘Using federal moneyand extensive tax abatement programs, the city ripped up seedy piers by theInner Harbor and built an outdoor mall that helped to make tourism one of thecity’s leading industries’ (Euchner, 1993:103). Later on, when the BaltimoreColts relocated to Indianapolis and the Orioles baseball team threatened to leave,sport and heritage merged on the policy agenda.

Cleveland also had a reputation as a city in decline:

A negative image of Cleveland existed in the national media and in the nationalconsciousness as a result of race riots and the state of race relations; the local pol-itical battles between neighborhoods, the mayor, and the city’s corporate leader-ship; and the environmental problems of the Cuyahoga River. It becamecommon to refer to the city of Cleveland by the nickname assigned to MunicipalStadium, ‘the Mistake by the Lake’ (Rosentraub, 1997:252).

As a result, redevelopment initiatives in downtown Cleveland have actively culti-vated sport facilities with heritage elements, such as Jacobs Field, but also heritagebased venues, such as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

In contrast, while several of the 49 Canadian cities that host CHL franchises haveexperienced economic hardship, the CHL overall has grown and thrived in its hostcommunities over the past two decades. As a result, no overarching crisis hasoccurred that creates the market for heritage as part of the experience at CHL arenas.

Future Heritage Tourism Developments at the Junior Hockey Level

The discussion above has identified the reasons behind the absence of heritageelements in the facilities used by junior hockey franchises in Canada. This can beattributed to the robustness of the junior hockey market, which distinguishes itfrom issues faced by minor league baseball, and the National Hockey League inCanada over the past few decades. It has also been argued that nostalgia sporttourism related to junior hockey is associated with the social experience of gameattendance, and not the actual venue where the experience occurs. In addition, ithas been suggested that the demand for heritage elements of hockey has emergeddue to crisis that has occurred at the national level, and not in junior hockey specifi-cally. This has led to nostalgia for sport place manifesting itself in a mythical,outdoor setting, which the Heritage Classic attempted to capture. Finally, for themost part, the cities hosting junior hockey franchises have not necessarily hadthe economic downturns that led to the heritage-influenced stadium boom at themajor league level, particularly in baseball. Due to its overall financial success,junior hockey has not faced the same anxiety or desperation that has been identified

268 Mason et al .

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

00:

29 2

1 D

ecem

ber

2014

Page 18: Heritage, sport tourism and Canadian junior hockey: nostalgia for social experience or sport place?

as a precondition for seeking out and celebrating elements of heritage (Hewison,1987; Lowenthal, 1998).

However, the success of facilities such as Oriole Park at Camden Yards, andevents that celebrate heritage like the NHL’s Heritage Classic would suggest thatan opportunity exists for CHL teams and their respective communities to leveragethe well-established links between hockey and community for economic purposes.As explained by Graham, Ashworth & Turnbridge (2000), ‘While heritage is part ofthe way in which cultural politics are operationalized, it exists simultaneously as aneconomic commodity’ (129). This helps to explain why cities such as Baltimore,MD, and Cleveland, OH, put sport facilities incorporating heritage elementsfirmly on civic pro-growth agendas. In those cases sport was identified as a lynchpinfor broader development projects (Rosentraub, 1997). Similarly, ‘heritage is alsoone element in economic development alongside others, frequently exercising acatalytic or integrating role in development projects’ (Graham, Ashworth &Tunbridge, 2000:155), and represents an opportunity to construct identities atthe national and civic levels (Belanger, 2002).

As a result, CHL cities, particularly those with long-standing histories with theirrespective junior hockey franchises, and/or those with teams that have been highly suc-cessful competitively, may be able to link local notions of hockey, community andidentity with their facilities, to create a market for tourists seeking nostalgia throughsport place. This follows Ashworth and Tunbridge (1990), who explained that:

The uniqueness of place, which is so fundamental to the logic and ultimately tothe commercial success of the tourist-historic city, depends increasingly on howthese recurrent features are assembled, and how much sensitivity is shown tolocal distinctiveness in the development and marketing of each (199).

As a result, cities may be able to leverage their local CHL franchises to exploit theunique historical experiences that the city possesses, in order to create a facility thatwill become a place sought out by nostalgia sport tourists.

Finally, those CHL cities that have experienced some economic decline would bemore likely to place an arena project at the forefront of a future development pro-posal, suggesting that these communities may be the first to explore the use of heri-tage elements in their facility designs. As explained by Lowenthal, ‘heritagecustomarily bends to market forces’ (Lowenthal, 1998:97). Should market forcesdictate that junior hockey franchises and their host communities seek out newways to draw people to their communities, we could see a trend toward stylized,retro ice hockey facilities similar to those found in minor league and majorleague baseball. This may happen as soon as every CHL community has a new,modern, 5,000-seat arena, at which point city leaders may begin to questionwhat competitive advantages have truly been realized.

References

Ashworth, G.J. and Tunbridge, J.E. 1990. The Tourist-Historic City London: BellhavenPress.

Baade, R.A. and Sanderson, A.R. 1997. Minor league teams and communities. In Sports,Jobs, and Taxes: The Economic Impact of Sports Teams and Stadiums eds R.G. Nolland A. Zimbalist, pp. 452–93. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.

Belanger, A. 2002. Urban space and collective memory: Analysing the various dimensions ofthe production of memory. Canadian Journal of Urban Research 11; 69–92.

Heritage, Sport Tourism and Canadian Junior Hockey 269

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

00:

29 2

1 D

ecem

ber

2014

Page 19: Heritage, sport tourism and Canadian junior hockey: nostalgia for social experience or sport place?

Beriatos, E. and Gospodini, A. 2004. ‘Glocalising’ urban landscapes: Athens and the 2004Olympics. Cities 21; 187–202.

Bernstein, A. 2005, October 2. Fans warm up to NHL: Season ticket renewal rates ahead ofpre-lockout figures. Sports Business Journal, 8(21); 1, 52.

Canadian Press 2004, November 30. QMJHL to welcome St. John’s, Saint John.CHL 2005. About the CHL: CHL Fast Facts. http://www.chl.ca/CHL/cp_fastfacts.html.

26 October.Delaney, K.J. and Eckstein, R. 2003. Public Dollars, Private Stadiums: The Battle over

Building Sports Stadiums New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.Deloitte & Touche 2005. City of Kingston: Large Venue Entertainment Centre: Market

study for the city of Kingston.Dryden, K. and MacGregor, R. 1989. Home Game: Hockey and Life in Canada Toronto:

McClelland & Stewart.Duquette, G.H. and Mason, D.S. 2004. Finding a home market: Franchise ownership in the

Canadian Hockey League. Sport Management Review 7; 79–102.Ellerbe Becket 2005. NBA Pacers: Conseco Fieldhouse. http://www.ellerbebecket.com/

portfolio_template_34.html. 23 August.Euchner, C.C. 1993. Playing the field: Why Sports Teams Move and Cities Fight to Keep

Them Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.Fainstein, S.S. and Campbell, S. Eds. 2002. Readings in Urban Theory 2nd ed. Malden, MA:

Blackwell.Fairley, S. 2003. In search of relived social experience: Group-based nostalgia sport tourism.

Journal of Sport Management 17; 284–304.Fairley, S. and Gammon, S. 2005. Something lived, something learned: Nostalgia’s expand-

ing role in sport tourism. Sport in Society 8; 182–97.Friedman, M.T., Andrews, D.L. and Silk, M. 2004. Sport and the facade of redevelopment in

the post-industrial city. Sociology of Sport Journal 21; 119–39.Gains, P. 2004, March 27. Dreams of the NHL are costly. The Kitchener/Cambridge/

Waterloo Record, p. A17.Gedge, D. 2005, April 6. Business Plan – draft. Investment in Kingston Large Venue Enter-

tainment Centre (LVEC).Gibson, H.J. 1998. Sport tourism: a critical analysis of research. Sport Management Review

1; 45–76.Gibson, H. 2003. Sport tourism: an introduction to the special issue. Journal of Sport Man-

agement 17; 205–13.Graham, B., Ashworth, G.J. and Tunbridge, J.E. 2000. A Geography of Heritage: Power,

Culture, and Economy New York: Oxford University Press.Gruneau, R. and Whitson, D. 1993. Hockey Night in Canada Toronto: Garamond Press.Hewison, R. 1987. The Heritage Industry: Britain in a Climate of Decline London:

Methuen.Hodge, N. 2005, May 24. Junior game has taken spotlight. New Brunswick Telegraph

Journal, p. D1/D6.Holmes, R. 2002, March 7. Canadian city loses jr. hockey. TSN Magazine. http://

tsn.tsnmax.ca/magazine/feature2.asp?bg¼hockey7&story¼020307_cents&col¼holmes&length¼2&page¼1. 1 April.

Houston, W. 1997, May 10. Canada’s game: Young hockey talent failed by the system. TheGlobe and Mail, p. 1A.

Howell, C.D. 2001. Blood, Sweat, and Cheers: Sport and the Making of Modern Canada.Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Jackson, S.J. 1994. Gretzky, crisis, and Canadian identity in 1988: rearticulating the Amer-icanization of culture debate. Sociology of Sport Journal 11; 428–46.

Johnson, A.T. 2000. Minor league baseball: Risks and potential benefits for communitieslarge and small. In Rich, W.C. ed. 2000, The Economics and Politics of Sports FacilitiesWestport, CT: Quorum Books, pp.141–51.

Kidd, B. and Macfarlane, J. 1972. The Death of Hockey Toronto: New Press.Kotler, P., Haider, D. and Rein, I. 1993. Marketing Places: Attracting Investment, Industry

and Tourism to Cities, States and Nations New York: Free Press.Kraus, R.S. 2003. Minor League Baseball: Community Building through Hometown Sports

Binghamton, NY: The Haworth Press.

270 Mason et al .

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

00:

29 2

1 D

ecem

ber

2014

Page 20: Heritage, sport tourism and Canadian junior hockey: nostalgia for social experience or sport place?

Lowenthal, D. 1998. The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History New York: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Mason, D.S. 2002. ‘Get the puck outta here!’ Media transnationalism and Canadian iden-tity. Journal of Sport and Social Issues 25; 140–67.

Mason, D.S. and Duquette, G.H. 2004. Exploring the relationship between local hockeyfranchises and tourism development. Paper presented at the Travel and TourismResearch Association Conference, Montreal, Quebec, 21 June.

McKercher, B., Ho, P.S.Y. and du Cros, H. 2005. Relationship between tourism and culturalheritage management: Evidence from Hong Kong. Tourism Management 26; 539–48.

Nauright, J. and White, P. 1996. ‘Save our Jets’: Nostalgia, community professional sportand nation in contemporary Canada. Avante 2; 24–41.

Osborne, B.S. 2001. Landscapes, memory, monuments, and commemoration: Putting iden-tity in its place. Canadian Ethnic Studies 33(3): 39–67.

Ramshaw, G. and Hinch, T.D. forthcoming. Place identity and sport tourism: The case of theHeritage Classic ice hockey event. Current Issues in Tourism.

Rappaport, J. and Wilkerson, C. 2001. What are the benefits of hosting a major league sportsfranchise? Economic Review – Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City 86; 55–86.

Richmond, P. 1995. Ballpark: Camden Yards and the Building of an American DreamNew York: Fireside.

Ritzer, G. and Stillman, T. 2001. The postmodern ballpark as a leisure setting: Enchantmentand simulated de-McDonaldization. Leisure Sciences 23; 99–113.

Rosensweig, D. 2005. Retro Ball Parks: Instant History, Baseball, and the New AmericanCity Knoxville, TN: The University of Tennessee Press.

Rosentraub, M.S. 1997. Major League Losers: The Real Cost of Sports and Who’s Payingfor It New York: Basic Books.

Scherer, J. 2001. Globalization and the construction of local particularities: A case study ofthe Winnipeg Jet. Sociology of Sport Journal 18; 205–30.

Scherer, J. and Jackson, S. 2004. From corporate welfare to national interest: Newspaperanalysis of the public subsidization of NHL hockey debate. Sociology of SportJournal 21; 36–60.

Silver, J. 1996. Thin ice: Money, Politics, and the Demise of an NHL Franchise Vancouver:Fernwood Publishing.

Smith, A. 2005. Reimaging the city’ The value of sport initiatives. Annals of TourismResearch 32; 217–36.

Task Force 2004, March 21. The Mayor’s large venue entertainment centre task force:Report to the Mayor. Kingston, ON.

Wolfe, C. 2004, December 2. NHL lockout hitting WHL teams on bottom line. PrinceAlbert Daily Herald, p.11.

Wood, J. 2005. Talking sport or talking balls: Realizing the value of sports heritage. Indus-trial Archaeology Review 27; 137–44.

Yzerman, C. 2001, December 29. North Bay losing team: Centennials bound for Saginaw ifsale gets OHL approval. Ottawa Citizen. http://www.ottawacitizen.com. 24 January.

Heritage, Sport Tourism and Canadian Junior Hockey 271

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

00:

29 2

1 D

ecem

ber

2014