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Weyburn Red Wings in dire straits financially

It's no secret that many teams struggle with the rising costs of running a Junior A hockey franchise. For the Weyburn Red Wings, it's gotten bad enough that the ability to ice a team next year is in question.
Weyburn Red Wings

It's no secret that many teams struggle with the rising costs of running a Junior A hockey franchise.

For the Weyburn Red Wings, it's gotten bad enough that the ability to ice a team next year is in question.

The Estevan Bruins' Highway 39 rivals made it known Thursday that they are in dire straits financially, with a debt load of roughly $180,000. 

Red Wings president Larry Tribiger said there is a possibility this could be the club's last season, but he was optimistic about digging out of the debt problems.

Tribiger said there are a number of factors that have contributed to the club's current situation.

"The revenues aren't what the expenses are anymore. That's the long and the short of it. It just kind of snuck up on us. We were just surviving from year to year, basically. It's just like any business, eventually it's going to catch up to you. 

"Attendance has dropped down, we haven't made the playoffs for a couple of years now and even before that when we did make the playoffs, it was one round. Equipment (costs) have gone up. Everything goes up and the revenue coming in (goes down)," he said.

Another factor is the struggling economy and plummeting oil prices, which is starting to affect the amount of money the Wings are able to bring in from corporate sponsorship.

"The companies are starting to hang onto their money. (But) don't get me wrong, the people in Weyburn have been fantastic," Tribiger said.

A large portion of the team's debt has been accrued in the past year, as Tribiger said the debt load was only about $60,000 a year ago.

He added he hopes the organization can pay off all of its debt and would prefer that none of it is forgiven.

Tribiger said the team now has a yearly budget of about $800,000 in order to provide for all the costs.

"When you're only raising six or seven hundred thousand, you're going to have that deficit."

Still, the picture is brighter now for the Wings than it was last week. More than 1,000 fans packed the rink for Friday's game against the Battlefords North Stars, and the team held its annual sportsman's dinner fundraiser on Saturday. 

"It would be huge. If this sportsman dinner could generate $40,000 for us, that would really get us through until we can get more fundraising going on. The sportsman's supper is our make or break (event)."

It was not known on Monday how much money was raised, but the club described the event as a success.

"Things are a lot more positive now than they were three or four days ago," said SJHL president Bill Chow on Monday. "They had over 1,000 people in the arena on Friday night and the sportsman's dinner on Saturday. They said it was a success. They're deeming it a success and that's important." 

Tribiger said the debt load would have to be cut in half for the organization to ice a team next year.

The team has opened up public shares that people can buy for $200. 

"If I have anything to do with it, I'm going to go out kicking and screaming before I let the Red Wings go. We've got options," Tribiger said. "It's bad, but it's not panic bad. We're not buried yet.

"Hopefully it's going to get better. A couple of playoff rounds and we're right back in the game again. But we can't bank on that. We can't say, 'if we make the playoffs, if we go two rounds,' we can't bank on that. We gotta go with what the reality is.

It does appear as though the Red Wings will make the playoffs for the first time in three years, as they are battling the Melville Millionaires for first place in the Viterra Division.

But, Tribiger noted, the new playoff format that was brought in last year makes it harder for teams to make money in the playoffs if they have to travel a long way in the early rounds.

"The playoff format is terrible for us. I know Estevan had to go to Flin Flon last year (in the survivor series). If it happens again, I don't know, can any of these teams afford to do that again?"

Tribiger said that with many Junior A teams struggling to stay afloat, he believes it's time for leagues to consider helping those teams financially. He said the team was sending a representative to last weekend's mid-season meetings to suggest that point.

"We are voicing very loudly that hopefully the league can start helping some of the teams that are in financial difficulty, helping them through the tough periods, even if they have to give us interest-free loans.

Chow said the league is open to that in principle, but that it would depend on what the team is requesting.

"We discussed that and it would really depend upon how or what the struggling team was asking for. Would the league always try and support a franchise that was in tough? Absolutely. To what degree, I have no idea. The governors would make a decision based upon what's asked."

Tribiger said that while the community has backed the Red Wings, "it's like anything, after a while people get tapped out. You can only go after the same people so many times for money. We've tried lotteries. We've tried cabarets.

"We're going to keep the team on the ice for this season, then we go hard in the summer to raise funds and get the team back on the ice for next year. I don't know how many years you can keep going like that, though."

Chow said that while some of the league's other 11 teams are struggling financially, none are in danger of folding. 

"We asked that question at the meetings and there are some teams that have some outstanding debts, but those teams feel they have plans in place to either have a balanced budget in place by the end of the year, or manage that debt load. Hopefully we learn something from this and do some things so these situations don't arise again."