The recent ECHL Growlers case honestly seems to fall on Deacon Sports ownership.
They had no chance of success really. And it doesn't fall on Deacon Sports.
They didn't have the support of the league itself. Owners of other teams just saw the franchise and the cost to go play games in St. John's as bad business. If the ECHL as a whole really wanted to still be in St. John's, it would be. Some of the other team owners just wanted the Growlers gone and this was alluded to by a reporter when the story broke.
Deacon certainly wasn't helped by the cost of living increases. When times are tough and disposable income is less, the first thing to go for most families is nights out to restaurants/movies/sporting events.
But the larger issue was St. John's Sports and Entertainment. I travel to St. John's for work and have been to a few Growlers games. From what I saw, and what I heard talking to folks, SJSE is/was the major problem in running that venue.
From what I've been told chatting with the locals at the games, SJSE is corrupt organization stuff to the brim with incompetents milking the taxpayer for all their worth. Deacon Sports wanted to do them a favor and take that nearly 30 year old arena off the taxpayers hands and renovate the building and SJSE told them to go kick rocks. No way those SJSE executives were about to give up their 6-figure salaries just to appease Deacon Sports. If the arena was sold to Deacon, SJSE has no purpose and would disappear taking those cushy executive patronage jobs with them. This is where the relationship started going south. Deacon crossed a line with them going public with their desire to own, operate, and renovate the arena.
Years ago, SJSE and another group competed for a QMJHL franchise and the other group was awarded it. Bitter and resentful, SJSE did everything in their power to make sure that other group had no chance of success, rather than work with their major tenant to find financial solutions. Two years in, that group gave up.
Unlike a private entity, SJSE is taxpayer funded and have basically no incentive to try and maximize the arena's revenue by trying to find user groups to rent the facility 300+ nights a year. They get their 6 figure salary regardless. They don't care about anchor tenants. I don't think they care about generating revenue.
In my own fan experience the handful of games I attended, it was largely negative.
One game I went to get food during the 1st intermission. I never got back in my seat until 5 mins. left in the 2nd period. I spent nearly a half-hour trying to get a plate of fries. The workers at he concession were all standing around like they had no clue what they were doing.
Now to miss almost an entire period on a $25 ticket is one thing. Imagine dropping hundreds of dollars to see a sporting event and spending 1/3 of it in the concession line-up. You'd lose your mind. Heck you'd demand a refund.
Another game, during the 2nd intermission I was in the line-up for an adult beverage up in the concourse. All of a sudden, the lady working that beverage concession puts a sign in front me saying "closed". I questioned why she wouldn't serve me and she said as soon as the puck drops to start the 3rd period, adult beverage sales are prohibited. Meanwhile while your up on the concourse, you have no idea when the puck is about to drop that I could notice. There are no screens showing what's happening out in the main area. Heaven forbid you run into someone you know and get sidetracked having a conversation. What a strange and arbitrary rule. Here I was grown man about to hand them $15 for two 355ml cans of local beer but they wouldn't take my money.
The concourse area itself is extremely dated and hasn't seen a dime of investment since the building was built back in the mid 1990s.
A 3rd visit to the city (earlier this year) they had a promotion where if you bought a 24 pack of Coors Light at a local retailer, you'd get a voucher for two free tickets to a select Growlers game. Great deal right? Went back to my hotel room to redeem the voucher online. No sir. Can't be redeemed online. I had to make a trip down to the arena box office (which is only open select hours) to redeem it and get my tickets. I get to the box office and ask the worker what was available for seats so I could pick the seats I wanted. Once again, no sir. They literally could not show me a up-to-date seating chart. They had no way to even turn the monitor towards me so I could see what was available. All they had was printed chart of each number section and the best I could do was say which section I would like, but not specify the actual seast. Once again, completely bizarre for a sports and entertainment company here in 2024. Amateur hour stuff.
So if your Deacon Sports, and you don't own or operate the arena, and your getting complaints from your paying customers about the poor fan experience, and your partner in all of this (SJSE) is unwilling to do anything to remedy the poor fan experience and get more customers into the building for games, what are you supposed to do?
Keeping in mind that ECHL by itself isn't a great draw. It's decent hockey but it's not like your watching a pile of future NHL stars in action. It's mostly just a fun night out.
All that to say you will NEVER see high level hockey (AHL, ECHL, QMJHL) in St. John's ever again. The ECHL will never try it there again. The AHL in Atlantic Canada is a thing of the past. I don't believe there is enough revenue in Major Junior hockey to make it work here with the travel costs to other teams. SJSE may one day try and get a QMJHL franchise on their own like they tried years ago but I feel like they would be told "thanks but no thanks, been there, done that".