What are the Canadians thoughts on Canadian expansion?

[Hawk87]

Curious what the Great White North insight is on more GBL coming to Alberta/BC/Saskatchewan. I assume Winnipeg is happy in the NL, and the GBL never will make it that far east.

I'm also curious in what anyone's experiences have been with the collegiate league they run in Western Canada. The exact name of the league is escaping me, but I wanna say its the WMBL (Western Major Baseball League).

[WallysWorld]

At least one more if not two more Canadian teams in the GBL and the league should be safe in Canada. I say a team in the interior of BC (Kamloops or Kelowna) and one in Saskatoon. With four or five teams, they could form a Canadian division to reduce travel costs.

As a side note about attendance here in Calgary, Vipers attendance shot up from about 1,100 per game to over 2,500 per game after mid-July. There was some concern about the poor attendance before the mid-July turnaround, but after that the crowds started really coming out and the team averaged about 2,900 for the playoffs including a team record 4,900 for game 3 against Edmonton.

The 11 team Western Major Baseball League or WMBL is a summer collegiate baseball league. The Okotoks Dogs used to play in Calgary with the same nickname. They set the WMBL playoff attendance record drawing about 3,400 for the final championship game in 2004. Now the Dogs play in Okotoks, which is a bedroom community about 20 miles outside of Calgary, and in a brand new stadium. They have great support and averaged around 2,100 per game in 2009. The Dogs left Calgary in 2007 after they and the Vipers conflicted over use of Foothills Stadium.

The rest of the WMBL exists in Alberta and Saskatchewan with most teams averaging about 100-400 fans per game.

http://www.wmbl.ca/

[hot_corner]

My thinking is that if there were one more team in Canada it would be great for the teams in terms of travel times/cost, and would add some relevance to the games (just think "Canuck Division"). Cities like Yuma, St. George, etc have little to no meaning to us northerners. If fans show up to the games, it's only to support the home team and not because of rivalries and stuff like that.

I would love to see a team in Kelowna for a couple of reasons:

First of all, many many people from Calgary/Edmonton vacation in Kelowna during the summer. I would bet that there would be lots of vacationing Viper/Capital fans in the stands for the K-town home games, assuming they can take the heat. Over the past few seasons I have had to miss the majority of the Vipers August games because I was camping in the Okanagan.

Secondly, purely selfish reason: This summer I moved permanently from Calgary to the Okanagan so there will be no more trips to Foothills stadium for me. If a team doesn't land in Kelowna or Kamloops, then my days of seeing live GBL games are over!

[ChicoOutlawsFan]

Word is that Kamloops may have a team by October. It's looking good in that regard.

[Hawk87]

With a Hawaii team making 10...are we going to get 0, 1, or 2 Canadian teams??

[ChicoOutlawsFan]

With a Hawaii team making 10...are we going to get 0, 1, or 2 Canadian teams??

You should be getting one in Kamloops. The announcement could be made this month.

[Hawk87]

dredging this topic up. Am surprised we haven't had an announcement on a 10th team. Not having a Canadian team in place by now makes me think the GBL is going to tango with the Tijuana ownership once again and try that out. I think that's a bad idea.

Here's a question for the Canadians, is Red Deer large enough for a baseball team?

[WallysWorld]

Red Deer has a population of around 60,000 and hosts the Red Deer Rebels major junior hockey team in the Western Hockey League. The Rebels average close to 6,000 fans a game with many sellouts.

I don't know if Red Deer could support a GBL team. A better choice might be Lethbridge which has around 70,000 people and used to host a team in the rookie Pioneer League years ago.

Priorities for GBL expansion in Canada should be: Kamloops or Kelowna, Saskatoon and then other cities like Lethbridge.

[Hawk87]

Still, absolutely perplexed that a fourth team in western Canada hasn't been announced. You'd think that would be priority number one. Keeping the 3 Canadian teams in the GBL has to be a huge priority due to the strength of the franchises. Victoria debuted amazingly, Calgary has been a consistent baseball presence for years and years, and Edmonton has the best field in the league (maybe Hi Corbett is a parallel).

Instead of adding a fourth team to make a logical Canadian division all to its own, the GBL has made operating more difficult and expensive for the Canadian teams by adding Hawaii and trying to revive Tijuana. I could see someday in the future where Winnipeg leaves the NL, and a few cities are added and a new Canadian indy league makes a go at it.