The St. Albert Steel and the City of St. Albert faced off Friday afternoon during negotiations for a new lease agreement at Servus Credit Union Place.
The current contract expires Aug. 31, 2012.
“We’re certainly optimistic that we can get a deal done for sure. We don’t want to leave St. Albert. We never have wanted to, but the way the current deal is structured it’s near impossible to operate in this market,” said Greg Parks, head coach, general manager and part-owner of the Alberta Junior Hockey League team.
Negotiations have been ongoing since January.
“It’s been pretty much a stalemate,” Parks said. “It’s difficult when you have to go through Servus and then they have to go through the city so for us to have the chance to sit down with Mayor Crouse and a couple of the councillors to find out exactly where they’re at will allow us to figure out what the next step will be. Hopefully there will be a little bit of closure after [Friday] if there is any hope or not.”
Mayor Nolan Crouse said it’s up to the Steel to make the next move.
“Basically we’re transferring the ball to them. They’ve been trying to push back and transfer the ball back to us. We’re going to transfer it to them and say this is it; here is the decision on the agreement. This is basically where we’re at,” he said.
The value of the city’s in-kind support of the Steel has been approximately $289,000 a year since 2007 for use of the facilities, including office/storage space and reduced ice rates.
A significant portion of the gift in-kind is advertising space in Performance Arena that equates to a value of $213,000 in inventory allocated to the team.
The city also spent $215,000 in 2007 to upgrade the dressing room to AJHL standards, which is being reimbursed by the Steel in instalments. The amount currently owing is $193,500.
“We believe the current agreement is fair when compared to all the other AJHL teams,” Crouse said. “We would like the St. Albert Steel to remain here and we are hopeful that the current financial agreement allows for that. Council has reinforced our position from January; the team is seeking new ways to prosper and we want to negotiate another long-term agreement and have the Steel remain in our community.”
However, Crouse admitted the feedback from the Steel prior to Friday’s meeting wasn‘t favourable.
“Based on what I feel, and with the conversations I’ve had personally with Greg and our staff have had with Greg is they feel what we’ve been able to offer isn’t a good enough deal for them,” Crouse said. “Our staff have met with Greg and Malcolm, his brother, on more than one occasion to try and put some of these issues behind them and what it comes down to is they just don’t have enough cash to continue.
“From our perspective they either need more cash income or they need things to cost less, that’s why advertising was such a bigger deal for them because that’s just cash in. On the expense side they may not have much room to move.”
Negotiations have centred on ice times and rates, sponsorship and advertising agreements and repayment of dressing room construction costs.
“The biggest issue is the advertising dollars. We just want to be on a level playing field with not only every other team in the Alberta Junior Hockey League but more importantly the teams in the Edmonton area. They get 100 per cent of their advertising and we only have potentially to get 60 per cent of it. It really puts us in a hole to start every year so it’s something that we need to revisit for sure,” Parks said.
At a budget meeting in November, Steel governor Kelly Smith asked city council for $125,000 annually for 10 years to help keep the Steel afloat. The request wasn‘t approved.
The operating budget for the non-profit organization has been pegged at $525,000 per year. In their first three years in St. Albert, the Steel operated in the red and lost about $100,000 in the 2008/09 and 2009/10 seasons.
Poor attendance has also plagued the Steel and last season was the worst for getting fans in the stands.
Winning hockey games has also been struggle. The Steel have never finished higher than sixth place in the north (seven out of eight teams in the division make the playoffs) and their only winning record was in 2008/09. In the playoffs they have lost every first round series and were swept by the Fort McMurray Oil Barons the past two seasons. The Steel’s playoff record is 3-12.
Season tickets also have dropped from 454 in the first season to 117 in 2010/11. The Drive for Five campaign launched in June to sell 500 season tickets has generated about 75 sales so far.
“I’m very disappointed. I actually can’t explain it. St. Albert is such a good sports town,” Parks said. “With the current advertising component, along with the season tickets, it makes it very difficult to operate a junior A franchise.”
Crouse said the Steel have until Feb. 28 to renew their agreement, based on the information the city was going to share with them Friday. If the Steel plan to relocate, they would have to let the league know of their intentions at the annual general meeting in January.
Parks was the assistant coach, general manager and part-owner of the Traders when the AJHL approved the relocation of the team to St. Albert in a vote by the board of governors in March of 2007.
In January, Parks said if the Steel did move, it would be to a place where the team would be the only show in town.
Despite the team’s uncertain future in St. Albert, Parks is committed to putting a winning product on the ice.
“We’re going to try and get some more St. Albert kids involved. We’re going to try and win some more hockey games and have a successful season in St. Albert. If it’s our last, it would be very unfortunate, but we just want to try and make it the best season we can. We don’t want to have any regrets for sure so we’re going to do everything we can to have a great season on the ice and not worry about the other distractions.”
