The jury is in on the initial decision to use the Canada Games Centre as the venue for the first Western Hockey League game to hit Whitehorse – capacity over broadcasting.

The Kamloops Blazers and the Vancouver Giants will square off in a regular-season game on Feb. 12 during Scotiabank's Hockey Day in Canada.

But the choice to use the Games Centre rather than Takhini Arena has left some within the city's hockey community scratching their heads.

John Grant, president of the Whitehorse Minor Hockey League, said Takhini is the venue you want if you want to attract a crowd.

"I can't tell you with any degree of certainty what the reason was for the decision, but you can certainly draw some conclusions from it,” Grant said.

"I guess most of the broadcast will be coming out of the Games Centre...logistically, if you're broadcasting there and then you're going to move everything over to

Takhini for one game, I don't know if that's driven the decision or not.”

Jay Glass, who is helping coach the Yukon's Canada Games hockey team, agreed.

"It would be a mistake, simply because of capacity – WHL teams play typically in four to six thousand seat facilities,” Glass added. "Most of the kids here have probably not seen a Western Hockey League game, so I'd like to see every young hockey player in town there.”

Coun. Ranj Pillai said that since the announcement broke earlier this month he's been flooded with e-mails and phone calls from those concerned they may not get to watch the game live.

During the 2007 Canada Winter Games, organizers managed to pack some 600 people into watch games played on the NHL surface at the Games Centre.

The knockout rounds, however, were played in Takhini, which held roughly 1,500 spectators – more than twice as many fans than its newer, shinier counterpart.

Pillai said CBC's decision to use the Games Centre as its base for Hockey Day in Canada was to do with broadcasting, as well as the centre's capacity to hold multiple events simultaneously.

TSN, however, broadcasted the Canada Games men's hockey final between Ontario and Manitoba from Takhini.

"This discussion's still open,” Pillai said.

"We're listening to everybody in the community. I've had a tremendous amount of feedback, via e-mails, phone calls, and people are concerned, so we're going to make sure that we take those concerns forward and come up with some sort of resolution.

"So is this set in stone? I don't think it's set in stone, because as we've walked through the process with CBC, they've been so gracious and very flexible. Now that this seems to have become an issue, I trust that CBC and Scotiabank and the WHL are going to review it.”

The CBC came to Whitehorse for a site visit last spring, and looked at both the Canada Games Centre and Takhini Arena as possible venues for the day's events.

Fast forward to the past month, Pillai said, when the WHL decided to play in the north. That put seating capacity under the microscope.

"Once the WHL said, ‘We're willing to come to the north for this,' well that changed everything – now we have a huge event happening – and the focus is on it and we want as much seating as possible, and the CBC wants to work with us to make people happy, because it's a community event,” Pillai said.

"There's a focus on this part of the story right now, but I believe we're going to see the idea be revisited.

In brief conversations with CBC, they just want to make it fit for the community.

"They're not going to do something that's going to cause discomfort, or a feeling that people lost out on a great opportunity.”

The WHL have not had an opportunity to send an operations person to scout appropriate locations for a regular season game, Pillai noted.

"The trend (for big games) has always been Takhini, and that could come true here,” he added.

Grant said making the game available to as many people as possible is significant.

"Unfortunately I don't make the decisions,” Grant said.

"I know minor hockey will be engaged by the organizers at some point down the road, but we haven't been to date.”

Glass said that he wishes there was an even bigger arena than the Takhini.

But you use what you have.

"You should want to go in the biggest one you got,” Glass said.

Added Grant: "Anytime we can attract excellent-caliber hockey to Whitehorse you're going to get support.