The Prince George Cougars, a WHL team, is reportedly up for sale with an asking price of $8 million. One potential buyer is Vancouver Canucks owner Francesco Aquilini, who has expressed interest in moving the team to Chilliwack and basing it at the 5,000-seat Chilliwack Coliseum. That was done sort of before years ago and that team bolted to Victoria. The arena then became home to the Quesnel Millionaires, who became the Chiefs of today. Not that their wasn’t another Chiefs team before but those guys left to make room for the old WHL team blah blah blah. See how this gets confusing?
There have also been two other inquiries about the Cougars, including one from a Prince George-based group that may keep the team in the city. Despite the Cougars’ recent success, winning their second B.C. Division title and capturing their first WHL Western Conference regular season crown, the team’s ownership reportedly lost at least a million dollars over the past several seasons. The team’s average attendance through 34 home games at CN Centre was 3,519, ranking 15th in the 22-team league. The Cougars organization and the WHL have yet to comment on the situation. I am pretty sure there are numerous teams in the WHL that would love to see PG gone (mainly for the out of the way road trips, I personally loved going to games at the CN when I was there). I found this online and thought it may be something to keep an eye on. Considering this came out the same day that WHL released their 2024-25 schedule. With the exception of moving to Chilliwack or staying put there is not many place that could support a WHL team. I don’t want to see another US based team either. Maybe contraction is something the WHL should consider if things don’t pan out for the Cougars in Prince George.
I found this online later. I really hope they stay in Prince George. I do however remember a similar letter like this (almost word for word) wrote from the Kootenay Ice in 2018. The year before they left for Winnipeg eventually.
