The town has given its blessing to the Innisfail Eagles to hang additional sponsor recognition signage on inside walls of the Innisfail Arena.
But council's approval came following a debate of whether the town should get a piece of the revenue pie.
“What is the town getting out of these things?” asked Mayor Jim Romane during the Sept. 9 presentation from Eagles brass.
The Eagles AAA senior men's hockey team, which has set a goal of winning the prestigious Allan Cup this season, noted the town gave the club permission last year to hang five 4-foot by 8-foot sponsor recognition signs on the west wall behind the penalty boxes in the Innisfail Arena.
The team's request on Sept. 9 is to add additional 4-foot by 8-foot chloroplast signs on the blue arena wall above the players' benches.
Mike Bennett, a director for the team, said the Eagles hope to have 16 signs, or even more, in the space council approved.
“We made a proposal and we've gone from having one person on board for $5,000 sponsorship to 10-plus people who want to come on board with sponsorship for the Innisfail Eagles,” said Bennett, noting it could cost the hockey club about $50,000 this season to get to the Allan Cup tournament in Dundas, Ont.
“We proposed to the town that if we put up the signs, would they let us use the wall space not knowing how long this period of sponsorship would last. We will review it every year.”
However, council noted that operating the Innisfail Arena costs the town $500,000 a year and that potential revenues, including those from signage, could help offset that deficit.
“We have advertisers that advertise along the boards now. They pay an annual fee, and basically that is what these new signs are that the Eagles are going to be putting up on the wall,” said Romane. “The town gets revenues from the ones on the boards, whereas the ones on the back wall the revenues will go to the Eagles, which they indicated to us genuinely that they need these kinds of funds to attend national competitions.
“I just threw the comment out that maybe should we be getting a little bit of the piece of the pie, but as councillor Mark Kemball pointed out the town is going to benefit by this through economic development by having a good hockey team and recognition all across Western Canada if they do well, and if we get behind the team, we should reap the rewards from that.”
Bennett said he understood Romane's concern but noted the Eagles are also the highest paying user group at the Innisfail Arena. “We pay an hourly rate of $120 an hour; that is the highest, ahead of what minor hockey spends, which is $80 an hour,” he said.
Although council ultimately approved the Eagles' request, both Coun. Tracey Walker and Romane suggested the issue of whether the town should get a piece of the revenue pie coming from arena wall signage could be a subject for further review in the future.
“Time will tell. I think Innisfail has been trying to get a winning hockey team for a lot of years and now they look like they are on track,” said Romane. “We don't want to disrupt that part of it either. Maybe in the future people may say, ‘Look, we've given enough, maybe they should give back'.”
Meanwhile, the Eagles have announced a Chinook Hockey League Pre-Season Showcase tournament at the Innisfail Arena for the weekend of Oct. 4, 5 and 6.
“It is the real kick-off for this season,” said Danny Daines, a director with the Innisfail Eagles.
The tourney will begin Oct. 4 with a game between the Eagles and the Okotoks Drillers, the latter a new team announced last week to fill the void of the disbanded Sylvan Lake Admirals franchise. The tournament will end Oct. 6 at 5:30 p.m. with a match between Innisfail and the Stony Plain Eagles.
The other teams competing are the Bentley Generals and Fort Saskatchewan Chiefs. Each team will play two games in the tournament. Daines said he expects tickets for the tournament will cost $10.
