If you have ever been to Las Vegas, it quickly becomes apparent that the glitzy streets and desert heat feel about as far from Ice Hockey heartland as you can get.
When people think NHL, they conjure up images of frozen lakes and angry Canadians with missing teeth, not the gaudy casinos and luxury shopping centres of the Las Vegas strip.
Yet up to a hundred thousand Nevada natives crammed Toshiba Plaza and the surrounding streets to watch the NHL Stanley Cup Champions, the Vegas Golden Knights participate in a parade and celebrations along the famous party strip.
Similar scenes happened in Denver, after the City’s championship-winning NBA franchise who recently lifted the Larry O’Brien trophy.
Under a decade ago the Nuggets struggled to sell out the home arena weekly as many of the City’s residents were drawn to the Denver’s NFL franchise the Broncos or to extreme alpine sports due to Denver’s proximity to some of the worlds best ski resorts.
Yet last week, again hundreds of thousands of fans crammed the streets to party with their heroes, and party they did with the days long scenes of raucous behaviour being beamed around the world.
These are the celebrations of people that have been on an epic journey with their team, celebrations of fans and players that realise that these scenes do not come around too often.
Here in Australia, we have similar scenes when a club wins the AFL, NRL or to a lesser extent the A-League titles, including weeklong lead ups filled with fan events, player engagements and festivals of footy, all these things drive home a message that making the final is a big deal and should be embraced by all involved.
Yet despite these scenes both here and across the world, one Australian sporting body is working within a framework that is making it immensely difficult for its teams to experience grand final glory.
Super Rugby Pacific has just completed its second season in this current format and only one Australian team progressed further than the quarter finals – the ACT Brumbies – and for the second year in a row fell painfully short of making a final.
In fact, in any form of the competition where teams from other nations have participated, Australian teams are going nearly a decade without a championship to their name.
This is mostly because the success of the national side – the Wallabies – has been almost the sole focus of the organisation, which means that the health and success of the Super Rugby teams seems to be a secondary thought.
The most glaring issue with that strategy is that the Wallabies have been perennial underachievers, in the last decade the side has won zero World Cups, zero Bledisloe Cups.
Nikola Jokic. (Photo by Dustin Bradford/Getty Images)
In fact the only International honours of any note was when the Wallabies won the 2015 Rugby Championship, (not so coincidentally the year after the NSW Waratahs last won the Super Rugby Competition) so it is not as in this strategy is really setting the national team up for success.
With these statistics and results, Super Rugby Pacific basically appears as 14-round training camp for the Wallabies, and a failing one at that.
For better or worse Rugby Australia has tied itself to the New Zealand and the Super Rugby Pacific format for the foreseeable future, so hopes of going it alone like in the Covid ravaged times of 2020 are all but dead, and scenes of an all-Australian final when forty thousand fans filed into Suncorp Stadium seem about as likely as an Alpine Skiing final in Barbados.
The main flaw with a competition such as the 2020 Super Rugby Australia is that with only five teams playing each other the competition would quickly become stale and predictable, and with a probable average crowd of around eight thousand (although this is a very difficult number to confirm as Rugby Australia prevent Austadiums from releasing figures in most cases).
The last thing the competition needs is to be seen as anything but predictable.
The reason making and winning finals and championships is such a big deal, why fans get so invested, why they celebrate so hard is because they are incredibly hard to win (except if you are maybe the Crusaders) and they need to be, hard but not impossible.
At present Rugby Australia are making it almost impossible and all areas of the game are suffering.
Rugby Australia’s Chair, Hamish McLennan’s ego appears to be the biggest roadblock to the setting up of an independent committee to address specific Super Rugby concerns.
Michael Hooper of the Waratahs celebrates with team mates during the Super Rugby Grand Final match between the Waratahs and the Crusaders at ANZ Stadium on August 2, 2014 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Mark Nolan/Getty Images)
So the first order of business, before a fanciful draft or signing of overpriced NRL players is to make this happen. If this is set up correctly with the right balance, of clubs, governing bodies, investors and playing groups, Super Rugby may finally be able to flourish.
The second and equally as important step is that RA needs to untangle itself from the Super Rugby competition.
The second order of business should be giving the teams full control of their roster.
In March of this year, the Brumbies were almost untouchable, undefeated, and flying high, their biggest test of the year heading over to Christchurch to take on Kiwi heavyweights the Crusaders who were ripe for the picking at the point of the comp having started with a 2-2 record.
In what could have been a statement game for the Brumbies and Australian rugby against a team that they haven’t beaten away from home in decades, they used that opportunity to sit out five of their best players due to a policy from head office, essentially admitting defeat before a ball was kicked.
Losing becomes habitual, and when you lose as often as Aussie teams do in NZ that habit needs to be broken.
Super Rugby franchises need to be able to play their best players at every opportunity, Australian teams need experience in winning, especially in New Zealand.
Rugby Australia should be empowering its teams to sign and pick the best players possible and giving them the funds to it through an equal share of the broadcast revenue seeing as how Super Rugby most of the heavy lifting does as far as content is concerned.
Going back to the scenes in Las Vegas and Denver earlier this month, both the teams raised tens of millions of dollars in merchandise sales and memberships, as well as fans who have created lifelong memories and a newfound sense of loyalty.
There is no better feeling as a fan than going on a journey with your team and celebrating like mad after, problem is Australian Super Rugby fans will never get to experience that feeling in the current format.
Both the aforementioned sports basketball and ice hockey are international with global fans and an Olympic presence, but unlike rugby in Australia they still put a high emphasis on a world-class franchise-based domestic competition.
While it is not the only thing, it is everything, just look at the scenes in Vegas and Denver.
Jack Ghost
Roar Rookie
It is because Aussie teams do not win anymore.
Brendan NH Fan
Roar Rookie
Otunuku PAUTA - perth bayswater to Béziers, Nepote MOALA Sydney Uni to Aurillac, Miracle TANGATA - Kings College to Lyon, Toshi BUTLIN - Brisbane to Pau, Paulo TAUILIILI-PELESASA - Club australien (not sure if made up club name) to Pau. Just a few people who over the 22/23 and 23/24 season that have moved into the T14 and ProD2 academies, More would go to England but couldn't be bothered to look them all up. Oz has one of the best school systems for producing players but they regress between 18-21 because they aren't developed. talent it there just no professional structure to nuture them.
fiwiboy7042
Roar Rookie
You really don't understand the SS mentality. They don't even want a team across town at Penrith (a massive talent catchment area) or even Parramatta (slightly less across town). Don't know much about the HC even though I am in Brisbane; that's how far off the radar these competitions are! As for your question about SS//HC players making the step up to overseas from their level, not very many would be my guess; at least not until they've developed at a more senior level. What happened with Meafou is a classic example of why RA's talent development system is broken.
Brendan NH Fan
Roar Rookie
They wouldn't be SS teams though they would be fully professional teams who have a team in the SS. If you took the best talent in the SS and HC and formed 4 teams out of the best players, gave them 10 months of professionalism each year and gave them 18 games a season against OZ SRP A teams and also agaisnt the other teams would they not be alot better than they are now. Look at Meafou and Amatosero, both SS players who with being in a professional environment where able to be SR level. Why do you think the same would happen to the players who were just as good but didn't go to France or Japan. How many SS and HC players each year go from SS/HC to a professional league and do fine. If you look at transfers GPS seems to have about 5 players a year moving to professional teams.
fiwiboy7042
Roar Rookie
Once again, BNHF, you insist on comparing the SH club scene to the European scene. You can't. What works up there will not work down here. The SS teams cannot compete at the SR Aust level; I have a brother who coaches in the SS junior ranks and I've seen some of the talent coming through. Yikes!!
Brendan NH Fan
Roar Rookie
One of the reason why France worked and England did not is that France made it clear that if you made it to a certain level you were automatically a member. A team promoted to the T14 gets the same money as everyone else. In the prem they get half the money. After London Welsh went bust only one backer has looked to take a risk. No backer is going to invest in the SS or HC but it they have the ability to own a professional club in a domestic league that may change. You can laugh at East and Rand but that is exactly what is happening with the European Super Cup. Its better to own half meaningful team then all of a rubbish one. If they joined together their SS teams would be taking all the best players that aren't at the tahs making both SS teams top teams. Plenty teams in England and France have combined to climb the ladder.
Hockey is huge in North America and Europe but the NHL is considered the most prestigious competition of them all. KHL in Russia might be quality but certainly doesn’t have the same amount of talent and most euro players would rather be in the NHL from the 90s pioneers like Jagr and Fedorov. Super Rugby is no longer a particularly prestigious tournament unfortunately which means that the world’s best are always going to try get across to Leinster or La Rochelle with a salary to match. The Vegas NHL team recruited heavily from Canada which you alluded to, but since they won the Stanley Cup I doubt people are complaining that most of the team would be from Alberta or Letterkenny and taking local pathways in Vegas - fans like winning teams. I suppose in that sense the Force and Rebels have a similar recruitment policy but little to show for it. Until Super Rugby becomes prestigious again or there is a big shake up, it’ll be a while before Australian teams see any large measure of success. Even the Eastern/Northern Suburbs rusted on crowd can only bear so many games like that one against Moana. I’d much rather a Saturday afternoon on the cans at the Shute Shield where you can leave the car at home and not have to battle traffic to Moore Park. I believed in the Waratahs in 2022 at Leichhardt but the 2023 iteration was so underwhelming even with the new stadium. There is zero atmosphere, hatred for the other teams or community feel. Ditto the SCG test v England. I’m a rusted on fan but it’s hard to get excited for Super Rugby anymore :unhappy:
Busted Fullback
Roar Rookie
The desire for an internal pro or semi-pro competition is something that all rugby supporters desire. But our geography, centralised population centres and the commercial competition from three other (already professional) football codes means that due to economy of scale and the lack of forethought and ambition, national professional rugby is probably just a dream. Unless, of course, someone can find a way to finance, and get Sydney on side with, an NRC.
fiwiboy7042
Roar Rookie
And there you go again: looking at Australian club rugby through the lens of European club rugby. The SS (and HC) clubs would be, for the most part, be unworkable in SR Aust. Not only that but Randwick and Easts together? Really?? And Easts can't find a group of millionaires to bankroll them. The club scene in these parts doesn't work like that (except for possibly Andrew Forrest and WA rugby and even then ..." RA's governance problems in no small part stem from the administrators at the club level, especially in the SS and HC.
Brendan NH Fan
Roar Rookie
If for example Randwick were to win one of the SRAU spots by securing funding for say 4 year all the best SS players not in SRP teams would sign with them. The teams don't need to be amazing but can build up over time. If Randwick couldn't do it by themselves and had to join with East Subs in order to win one of the spots would they make it work, if they didn't then they don't get a spot. If you offer these clubs the chance to play in a professional league you would be suprised what they would actually do. Lots of people know the rich people in French Rugby but for every billionaire their is a group of millionaires who own teams too. If East Subs can't find a group of millionaires willing to back a professional team the heartland is in trouble.
fiwiboy7042
Roar Rookie
For a start, there is a cultural-class divide in comps like SS which is noticeable. Asking these competitions powerbrokers to demonstrate unity, sense of purpose and vision is allmost pie in the sky stuff. The SS and HC clubs, more than likely, are simply not capable of stepping up to SR Aus level.
Brendan NH Fan
Roar Rookie
I don't understand why RA don't get all the SS and HC clubs together and tell them they are opening to play SRAU and that their are 5 extra spots available and that those who can put together the best proposals get the deal spots. Surely a few of the Super Clubs could get their mates to fund their team and the clubs already have a fan base.
Brendan NH Fan
Roar Rookie
The hockey is a good example of what SRP is not. I lived in Las Vegas for two year and it was below freezing maybe once On the hottest day of my time there the closest it got on that day was 35C. 42% of players come from Canada while only 7/32 (22%) teams do. The two finalist are not Ice Hockey Country but both places love winning teams and both are rich areas. The best players move to the best teams and a player from one country is treated the same as one from another country. SR does not have free movement of people of free movement of teams. Vegas was an expansion team and the first major team to be in the Las Vegas Valley of over 2m people (includes Vegas, North Vegas, Henderson and a few other places). SRP should of started in its heartland like Hockey did and then allow bigger centres to buy teams we ready to go squads. The Florida Panthers also an expansion team and are owned by the same people that own Marlins (Baseball) and Dolpins (football) so could share cost. Nothing stops RA from running a SR Au after SRP season and allow teams to be brought and moved around as they please. Until RA has 8 professional teams a domestic league will never happen.
LuckyPhil
Roar Rookie
Fully agree with this, but also think the issues are bigger than just the lack of fan engagement. NZR are reluctant to change anything, so any changes have to be focused on Aust. RA don't have the $$$ so need some lateral thinking. I previously mentioned about holding SRAU from July to October, but think it needs to be more than this.