#Tampa is eliminated from bidding to host 2018 World Junior championship, finalists are Buffalo, Pittsburgh and St Louis
— Erik Erlendsson (@erlendssonTBO) September 15, 2015
It’s a disappointment. The bid to host the international competition was from a very non-traditional market – one that’s proving itself as accepting the game, thank you – to begin with. It’s not clear and probably won’t tangibly be made clear why the location was rejected but attendance guarantees (with thanks to distance from the Canadian border) to go along with non-traditional weather during the of a traditional winter event (no snow, no cold, not hockey weather)… All or that weighed against Tampa Bay enough to eliminate the region from contention.
That would be the most short-sighted rationale employable.
Did the more-hospitable-climate take away from Tampa Bay? Of the three remaining candidate cities, it’s hard to say that each have any type of distractions during the dead of winter. Another item worth citing as against Tampa was likely the geographic distance to the border as well as the time of year for travelers to journey by plane (it’s more costly and inconvenient during the holidays).
One thing that shouldn’t be looked at as the shortcoming is the host venues. There’s been more than $65 million invested in Amalie Arena since 2010 (by Lightning owner Jeff Vinik and by the Republican National Committee when prepping the building for the 2012 Republican National Convention). One might look at the secondary venue, Germain Arena, as a shortcoming of the Tampa bid but… well; having a huge secondary venue isn’t a driving factor. Other bids (not including the Toronto / Montreal shared hosting tournaments by Canada) utilize a smaller venue as the secondary arena… In a sound business choice, it’d make sense to think the secondary venue size and distance might factor against a host contender. It’s hard to gauge USA Hockey’s driving factors as sound when they’re turning down a regular major event host location.
Chicago was also eliminated in today’s cut down.
