I am amazed at how much the Times Colonist - Cleve Dheensaw specifically - has been hyping the Salmon Kings. Yes, it is a professional hockey team, but it is not very high caliber hockey.
The ECHL is home to guys that are still trying to live out their dream of making it in hockey for a living or guys that can not manage to do anything else with their lives. There is nothing wrong with either one, but it is hardly the makings of something worth that much hype. I have trouble with the league name, officially it is the ECHL, but this comes from the East Coast Hockey League - time to have a name that makes some rational sense. The league also needs to become more stable, at the end of each season 10% to 20% of the teams fold or move. There is hardly any players that remain with any team for more a season - anyone good enough goes to Europe or the AHL. I would love to see the AHL here.
One first and biggest complaint about the Salmon Kings is how expensive the games are. At $21 a seat for adults, taking my family out to a game will run us about $150 or more when everything is said and done. Across town I can see the Grizzlies for about $100 all in. The Salmon Kings are more expensive than the Vancouver Giants, I know I which I would choose each time. In the WHL I can watch the future stars of the NHL.
I suspect part of the problem with the pricing comes from the fact that the arena was not built large enough for this city. We have 320 000 people in the region and do not have a single venue that can seat 12 000 to 15 000 people. The marginal cost of building SOFMC larger would not have been dramatic and should have been easily recoverable through more sales of tickets to events. More seats would have meant that the Salmon Kings could have been selling $10 tickets or even $8 tickets. For the city to love the team, more people have to be able see them.
Another problem with the Salmon Kings is that there is no way to follow their games if you do not go in person. There is no radio or TV coverage. If we still had CKDA, they would make a good radio venue for the team, but we do not and CFAX already has the Canucks. Maybe Shaw could be convinced to cover the games when they are here in town, or maybe a feed for bars. The UVic Vikes provide live webcasting. But without the chance to follow them like that, I can not get excited about minor minor leaguers no one has ever heard of.
What I find most bizzare is that there is huge focus by the TC on the Salmon Kings suddenly. Where was their coverage of UVic athletes? Or the world class athletes at the Pacific Sport Institute? The Vikes have consistently been a strong team in Men's and Women's basketball for almost 30 years now. The games are inexpensive to go to but attendance is light.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
A Community Radio Station for Tillicum Burnside
I would love to get a radio station operating in this neighbourhood. The process of applying for a low power community radio station is not that difficult at all. I went though this process when I lived in Lillooet and was part of the group that started CHLS.
We managed to put CHLS on the air for little more than $1000. We had a retired broadcast engineer to donate his time to do the technical work for the application. We applied just as the rules changed and this new category was created and made the whole process very simple. I called around to numerous commercial stations and got two low power transmitters are donations. I donated the mikes, someone else the computer and we were on the air. We managed to win the 2001 NCRA Standard Radio Award for small station - the award was our major source of funding in that year. We could not afford to send anyone, so an old CFUC colleague of mine, Magnus Thyvold picked it up for us.
I have been meaning to go up to the Comox valley and meet with a small group there to tell them what it takes to start a new station, but life has been to busy and I have not gone up there. I would love to see each town and each neighbourhood to have its own station.
I think it would be interesting to develop a local station and base it out of one of the local high schools or some other community building. The Burnside Gorge Community Association has a lot of space these days, as does School District 61 in the old Mount Tolmie school.
I believe it would be of benefit to have a radio station that is focused on one area of the city. I think there could also be ones in other areas of the city. The reach of a low power station would only be a few kilometers, small enough to all several of them in the region to share one frequency.
What I need to make this work is some support from the local community. Ideally I should take this idea to the BGCA or the Tillicum Gorge Community Association.
If anyone reading this is interested in the idea, I would love to hear from you and sit down and and see what can be done.
We managed to put CHLS on the air for little more than $1000. We had a retired broadcast engineer to donate his time to do the technical work for the application. We applied just as the rules changed and this new category was created and made the whole process very simple. I called around to numerous commercial stations and got two low power transmitters are donations. I donated the mikes, someone else the computer and we were on the air. We managed to win the 2001 NCRA Standard Radio Award for small station - the award was our major source of funding in that year. We could not afford to send anyone, so an old CFUC colleague of mine, Magnus Thyvold picked it up for us.
I have been meaning to go up to the Comox valley and meet with a small group there to tell them what it takes to start a new station, but life has been to busy and I have not gone up there. I would love to see each town and each neighbourhood to have its own station.
I think it would be interesting to develop a local station and base it out of one of the local high schools or some other community building. The Burnside Gorge Community Association has a lot of space these days, as does School District 61 in the old Mount Tolmie school.
I believe it would be of benefit to have a radio station that is focused on one area of the city. I think there could also be ones in other areas of the city. The reach of a low power station would only be a few kilometers, small enough to all several of them in the region to share one frequency.
What I need to make this work is some support from the local community. Ideally I should take this idea to the BGCA or the Tillicum Gorge Community Association.
If anyone reading this is interested in the idea, I would love to hear from you and sit down and and see what can be done.
The Busway
Given all the public opposition, it will take councilors with balls to approve the new busway. The opposition is missing several big points:
Light Rail in Victoria:
The idea is financially completely and utterly unfeasible. The E and N line is in the wrong location, and will be a major traffic problem in Langford and Esquimalt. Anything going up Douglas and out to the western communities is simply not cost effective on any level. Light rail built to a rapid transit standard will cost in the range of $500 000 000 to build. Once again, my big problem is the huge ongoing operational costs.
Busway Network:
The busway is planned to expand as a network throughout the region. If you do not build the first core (and highest use) part of it, the rest of the network does not really make that much sense. The construction of the big transit interchange at Carey and Douglas will not be likely to go ahead.
Realistically what is going to happen is nothing. We are not going to get any improvement in our transit system in this region. Over the next 20 years more and more people will be living further out and we will have done nothing to make them transit users.
I am now resigned to a stalemate and long delay before we finally get a dedicated bus way type of system.
When I lived in London in the early 1990s, I was initially a regular used of the Northern Line to get to work each day. As most underground rail systems, the ride was soul destroying and disorienting. I decided one to try the bus from my neighbourhood (Chalk Farm) to work in Oxford street. What was quite amazing how well the buses moved because of the dedicated bus lanes. I could get from home to work in about the same time as the tube and I enjoyed being able to see the world go by.
Ottawa also has an amazing bus way system that works like a charm and is very cost effective. I have used and was impressed how the system combined the best of dedicated rail transit with the flexibility of buses. This was really evident in central Ottawa where the buses seamlessly integrated into the rest of the traffic without causing the huge traffic a streetcar system causes.
I still hope people will see sense, but I realistic, this is after all Victoria and this city is so fundamentally conservative when it comes to change of any sort.
Light Rail in Victoria:
The idea is financially completely and utterly unfeasible. The E and N line is in the wrong location, and will be a major traffic problem in Langford and Esquimalt. Anything going up Douglas and out to the western communities is simply not cost effective on any level. Light rail built to a rapid transit standard will cost in the range of $500 000 000 to build. Once again, my big problem is the huge ongoing operational costs.
Busway Network:
The busway is planned to expand as a network throughout the region. If you do not build the first core (and highest use) part of it, the rest of the network does not really make that much sense. The construction of the big transit interchange at Carey and Douglas will not be likely to go ahead.
Realistically what is going to happen is nothing. We are not going to get any improvement in our transit system in this region. Over the next 20 years more and more people will be living further out and we will have done nothing to make them transit users.
I am now resigned to a stalemate and long delay before we finally get a dedicated bus way type of system.
When I lived in London in the early 1990s, I was initially a regular used of the Northern Line to get to work each day. As most underground rail systems, the ride was soul destroying and disorienting. I decided one to try the bus from my neighbourhood (Chalk Farm) to work in Oxford street. What was quite amazing how well the buses moved because of the dedicated bus lanes. I could get from home to work in about the same time as the tube and I enjoyed being able to see the world go by.
Ottawa also has an amazing bus way system that works like a charm and is very cost effective. I have used and was impressed how the system combined the best of dedicated rail transit with the flexibility of buses. This was really evident in central Ottawa where the buses seamlessly integrated into the rest of the traffic without causing the huge traffic a streetcar system causes.
I still hope people will see sense, but I realistic, this is after all Victoria and this city is so fundamentally conservative when it comes to change of any sort.
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