Sometime in the next few weeks we will likely have to say so long to the St. Albert Steel. It’s been a short, not very profitable or enjoyable stay in St. Albert for the Alberta Junior Hockey League club.
The AJHL hasn’t yet made a final decision on the Steel’s request to move to Whitecourt, but it’s rare that a team that wants to move is not allowed to, in any league. So odds are the Steel will be playing next season in Whitecourt and St. Albert, once again, will be without a junior A team. Which raises a few questions.
How will Servus Credit Union Place replace lost revenue and who will take up some of that soon-to-be-vacant ice time? Actually, that likely won’t be a problem, given the revenue is only about $35,000 to $38,000 and there’s never enough ice time available to meet the demands.
How does Northstar Hyundai feel, having just two weeks ago signed a 10-year contract for naming rights to the Performance Arena only to now find the arena without a primary tenant? Not that the Steel drew many fans into the arena anyway, with only a couple of hundred fans, if that, showing up for home games the last few months.
Why is it that a community of 60,000 people can’t support a junior A team when other towns of populations as low as 7,000 can?
Long-time hockey supporters say the Steel, which moved here from Fort Saskatchewan for the 2007-08 season – four years after St. Albert lost the Saints to Spruce Grove – hasn’t made enough of an effort to sell itself to the business community or the citizens.
The team doesn’t seem to promote itself all that much, not even putting out the sandwich boards announcing its home dates, and it’s never really had a high-profile presence in the community.
For a team with an annual operating budget of about $525,000, selling itself to the community is critical to survival, even when the City of St. Albert provides about $289,000 of in-kind support each year in facility use and reduced ice rates.
Season ticket sales and attendance isn’t enough to sustain most junior hockey clubs so corporate support is a huge factor in meeting the budget, and playoff dates are usually the only real chance to turn a profit.
There is an argument that says the competition is too tough, with the NHL Oilers and the WHL Oil Kings offering a higher quality game just 30 minutes away in Edmonton. It’s a valid argument until one looks south to Calgary, which supports not one, but two AJHL teams in more direct competition with the NHL Flames and highly successful WHL Hitmen.
No, there’s more to the Steel’s off-ice failure than meets the eye.
The Saints left town after 27 seasons basically because the council of the day, under Mayor Richard Plain, wouldn’t provide a rink with enough seating for the team to take advantage of playoff gates that would ensure its long-term financial stability.
The Steel has a 2,000-seat arena but can’t get the fans out. So what happened to those junior hockey fans? Did they find something else to do in those three years that St. Albert was without an AJHL team?
Or is the AJHL onto something when it asked Mayor Nolan Crouse, at last Friday’s meeting with the league’s management committee, what role Steel owner and general manager Greg Parks played in the lack of attendance and lack of financial revenue?
