To help dig the club out of a debt of more than $100,000, the Olds Grizzlys are hoping to pre-sell 500 season tickets by early April for the 2014-15 Alberta Junior Hockey League season.
The Grizzlys have been looking at various ways over the past few years to get out of the red. Since the club's annual general meeting in late June 2013, the team's debt hasn't gone down and board members of the Olds Sportsmans Recreational Association ñ which oversees the Grizzlys ñ have been brainstorming ideas to try and retire the debt.
As a result, the Grizzlys are launching a ìDrive for five, keep the Grizzlys aliveî campaign to pre-sell season tickets by April 4 and 5. On those dates, members of the Grizzlys' 1994 Centennial Cup championship team will be playing a group of other former Grizzlys alumni to celebrate 20 years since the team won Canada's biggest Junior A hockey prize. Season tickets will sell for $350 during the campaign.
ìIf you take a look at the (annual general meetings) we had in the past three or four years, it seems that our debt for the Olds Sportsmans Association have gotten a bit deeper and deeper every year,î said Russell Jemieff, the association's president.
He said since taking over as president, he and the board looked at the financial statements and wondered how to tackle the debt. In November, Chapman and Associates, an accounting firm, was brought in to look over the books.
Without an increase in support from the fan base, Jemieff said the team could move from Olds.
ìWe don't want that. We want to get ourselves back sustainable,î he said.
Ryan Bartoshyk, commissioner of the AJHL, visited with team officials in December during meetings he held with all the league's clubs to assess each team's overall health. After hearing about the financial issues facing the Grizzlys, Bartoshyk told team officials they should begin communicating with other teams such as the Lloydminster Bobcats, which faced similar financial problems in the past few years and were able to find a way back to viability.
Jemieff said if the Grizzlys sell 500 season tickets, the debt would be retired. He added in the past few years, fan support has dropped and it's getting more expensive to run a team. He said the association is making a host of changes in order to make the team more financially efficient.
For example, promotional nights such as the Duck Dynasty night the Grizzlys held earlier this season were a success and Jemieff said team officials want to hold more of them in the future.
