At the same time the Olds Grizzlys are preparing to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their greatest season, the club is looking at the very real possibility they will not take to the ice in Olds this fall.
At the same time the Olds Grizzlys are preparing to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their greatest season, the club is looking at the very real possibility they will not take to the ice in Olds this fall.
Russell Jemieff, president of the Olds Sportsmans Recreational Association, which oversees the Grizzlys, said the club has had disappointing results one month into its Drive for Five, Keep the Grizzlys Alive campaign to pre-sell 500 season tickets by April 4 and 5.
"We are on a stall," he said, adding only 38 tickets had sold by last week. "I’m trying to get the message out that if we don’t sell them, we will not be around this fall."
The club launched the fundraising effort because it is more than $100,000 in debt due to declining ticket sales and growing expenses to run the team.
The club’s annual budget is roughly $700,000.
Jemieff said in order for the campaign to be successful, season tickets sales have to hit 500 in the "next week to 10 days."
Last week, he added, he was trying to raise public awareness of the direness of the situation by speaking to the media.
"The mood amongst the club is we want to make sure everybody totally understands how financially in debt we are and the bad situation we’re in," he said, adding he believes few are buying the tickets now because they would prefer to hold off until the fall.
"Everybody’s saying, 'Well, we’ll wait until the season starts, we’ll wait until the season starts.’ People just didn’t realize how severe it actually is."
Season tickets cost $350 during the campaign and family packages are also available for $1,000, giving admission to two adults and two children. Seniors receive a discount on season tickets as well.
The end of the campaign on April 4 and 5 coincides with the 20th anniversary of the Grizzlys’ 1994 Centennial Cup championship, Canada’s largest Junior A hockey prize.
Along with members of the championship team playing a group of other Grizzlys alumni to mark the occasion, the team is holding a dinner on April 5 that will also serve as a fundraiser to help pay down the club’s debt.
Mayor Judy Dahl said her "heart goes out to them" and she recognizes the team’s hard work and commitment of the club’s volunteers.
But she said she is "disappointed" in the team’s approach to motivating the community to buy season tickets.
"You get nowhere or don’t go anywhere threatening citizens or people that you are going to have to leave or move because you’re in trouble," she said, adding such a tactic in her opinion is not the "wisest way to go" as it tunes people out.
"My reaction is that it saddens me to be putting comments out like that when all they have to do is have a solid business plan. What happened to the business plan? Where is it?"
Dahl, who said the team has not approached the Town of Olds for help, added people might open their chequebooks more willingly if players from the team started knocking on doors throughout town.
As for the possibility the team will fold after this season, Dahl said she does not see that happening.
"I think there’s too many brilliant people that live in the town of Olds that won’t allow it to go that far."
Ryan Bartoshyk, the Alberta Junior Hockey League’s (AJHL) commissioner, said the league leaves the responsibility of finances up to each club and would not play a role in the Grizzlys’ decision about the team’s future.
"All that the league truly asks is the fees and those types of thing are paid up at the league level," he said, adding such fees are not "overly substantial" and cover insurance and league administration.
He added, however, that the league does encourage teams to communicate with each other about ways to stay financially viable and remain in their home communities.
"It’s important as a league we compete on the ice but obviously share ideas off the ice and that was some of the direction I gave the group is to talk to other communities and see where they were at and certain initiatives and things that they did to turn things around," Bartoshyk said.
He shared the example of another AJHL team, the Lloydminster Bobcats.
Two-and-a-half years ago, the team was on the verge of relocating when the club’s ownership expressed interest in leaving the club.
The community had a short period of time to find owners to keep the team in Lloydminster and came up with the idea to, like the Grizzlys, sell season tickets.
But, Bartoshyk said, the community also decided to sell 100 ownership shares for $5,000 apiece.
The campaign was successful, the team stayed and the Bobcats are now enjoying healthy attendance and sponsorship, he said.
If the Grizzlys left town, Jemieff said the community would miss out on the roughly more than $1 million in economic benefits the team brings to Olds.
Such benefits come from the business hotels and restaurants receive from the Grizzlys, visiting teams and their families, the $40,000 a year the town receives in ice rental fees and the $60,000 the Olds Minor Hockey Association receives from concession sales during Grizzlys games.
[email protected]
@paeverest
CHECK US OUT ON FACEBOOK!
