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JULY 25, 2017 | Volume 30 No. 88
LAST-MINUTE FUNDRAISER RAISES $300,000+
WALKING WITH CARE TODAY’S WEATHER
High water has exposed some riverbank dangers
Sunny and hot High 33 C Low 15 C
Money will go to those impacted by wildfires
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Blazers get reduced rent at Sandman Centre By the numbers
ANDREA KLASSEN
STAFF REPORTER
andrea@kamloopsthisweek.com
The Kamloops Blazers will pay less to lease Sandman Centre under a new deal with the City of Kamloops. While the 10-year facility use fee agreement was approved by council at a closed meeting in February, a record of the vote was only recently released. Parks and civic facilities manager Jeff Putnam said teams across the Western Hockey League are pushing to renegotiate lease fees. “The league was having some concerns about their ticket revenue being flat,” he said. “They’re not struggling, but they’re having challenges with attracting a different demographic. And that was a league-wide issue.” Under the new deal, the Blazers will pay about $128,000 annually to use the arena — $150,000 less than what the team paid this past season. However, if more than 3,500 tickets are sold for a game, the city will receive an additional $1.40 per ticket sold above the 3,500 mark. If the team could fill Sandman Centre’s 5,600 seats every game, the city would be paid an extra $100,000 on top of the $128,000 rent. Previously, the lease was calculated using a flat annual fee, with built-in increases of two per cent per year. It started at $234,000 in 2008 and rose to $278,000 last year. Unchanged in the agreement is a $240,000 marketing fee paid to the city by the Blazers in exchange for the rights to sell advertising in Sandman Centre. Putnam said the new agreement includes other changes to benefit the city, such as the team taking over the season ticket holder preferred parking stalls program. While the city will still receive money from stall rentals, it won’t cover administration costs. Council’s vote on the new agreement was spilt, with records showing the deal passed by a 5-3 margin. In favour were former mayor Peter Milobar and former councillor Ken Christian, as well
Tom Gaglardi is majority owner of the Kamloops Blazers. Said Coun. Dieter Dudy, who voted in favour of the new deal: “I have to admit, I had a little bit of trouble swallowing somebody coming to me with their hands out and they’re a billionaire.” KTW FILE PHOTO
as councillors Dieter Dudy, Tina Lange and Pat Wallace. Opposed to the agreement were councillors Donovan Cavers, Denis Walsh and Arjun Singh, who is now interim mayor. “I have to admit, I had a little bit of trouble swallowing somebody coming to me with their hands out and they’re a billionaire,” Dudy told KTW, referring to the wealth of Blazers’ majority owner Tom Gaglardi whose Northland Properties has a portfolio that includes the Sandman hotel chain, the Sutton Place hotel chain, the Denny’s and Moxie’s restaurant chains and the Dallas Stars of the National Hockey League. But Dudy said he ultimately voted in favour of the negotiation to keep Kamloops from becoming another Vancouver — which lost its WHL team to Langley last year. According to the Vancouver Sun, the move was expected to save the team about $300,000 a year. “We define ourselves as the Tournament Capital of Canada, plus we put a lot of stock and value in the Blazers. They’ve been tied to Kamloops hockey for so many years,” Dudy said. “To lose that, I think, would be a blow to the community. They help define us as to who we are.”
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Singh said his issue with the new agreement was partly that it came early — the previous contract was not set to expire until 2018 — and that it came in a year when the team and the WHL were also asking for major upgrades at the Sandman Centre. The upgrades included a $300,000 charge to convert the arena’s lights to LED, required to fulfill a WHL edict that all games be broadcast in high definition by 2019, and a $550,000 retrofit of boards and glass to cut down on injuries. To change the boards, the city also had to spend $460,000 to retrofit the rows of bleachers closest to the ice. “It’s just a question of how much extra they’re asking the City of Kamloops to take a risk on and doing it out of contract,” Singh said. “I’m a bit of a stickler as much as possible for staying within contract time frames because you’re planning for that certainty over that time. If someone comes up unexpectedly, it does present some planning issues.” Putnam said without Blazer revenue, taxpayers would also be on the hook for another $800,000 annually to maintain Sandman Centre, which is equal to nearly a one per cent tax increase.
Last season, the Blazers exceeded 3,500 fans in 25 games and attracted fewer than 3,500 fans in 11 contests. In the 25 games in which the Blazers attracted more than 3,500 fans, the total number of fans above that mark was 12,866. Based on the new deal between the team and the city, at $1.40 per fan over 3,500, the city would have received $18,000 on top of the reduced $128,000 the team will pay to the city to play in Sandman Centre, $132,000 less than what the team paid the city last year under the previous agreement. Last season, the Blazers were 14th in attendance in the 22-team Western Hockey League, averaging 3,782 fans per game. Edmonton was tops at 9,461 fans per game on average, followed by Calgary (7,599), Portland (6,080), Spokane (5,812) and Regina (5,456). Teams with the worst attendance last year were Kootenay (22nd, with 1,754 fans per game on average), Swift Current (21st, with 2,006) and Prince Albert (20th, with 2,133). The Blazers’ smallest crowd was 2,948 for an Oct. 19 game against Swift Current. The largest crowd, 5,605, attended a Feb. 13 game against Portland.
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