By Greg Nikkel
The Weyburn Red Wings Junior A hockey club will undergo a full review of their bylaws, and will begin to have proper financial reports ongoing, with the hockey club coming away with a profit from the past season.
The club also had several new members added to the board of directors for the 2016-17 season at their annual general meeting, held on June 14 at the Ramada Hotel.
In his report, team president Larry Tribiger noted the Red Wings finished the regular season with a record of 35-14, finishing first in the division and third overall, with an average attendance of around 800 people per gave this year.
He noted there were some successful fundraisers, including the 50-50 run in conjunction with the Weyburn Beavers, and a successful raffle for a trip to Edmonton to take in an Edmonton Oilers NHL game.
Tribiger attributed part of the good attendance numbers to the work of office and marketing manager Tyler Wawryk.
“The game day experiences Tyler’s putting on, it’s more an event than just a hockey game,” he said.
Tribiger also noted the Red Wings will be hosting the Saskatchewan Hockey Hall of Fame induction supper on Friday, July 8 with a gala supper and event at Crescent Point Place, although board members expressed worry later on that only 42 tickets had been paid for as of the annual meeting.
There were tickets for the event available at the Weyburn Car Show on Saturday, and the board promised to increase the advertising for it, along with approaching businesses to buy tickets for it.
Tribiger said if they can sell 800 tickets for the event, they have the potential to make $80,000 from the supper, with the proceeds split with the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Head coach Bryce Thoma reported on the hockey operations, starting with the past season.
“As the coach, I’m happy with where we progressed to,” he said. “We would’ve liked to face Estevan (in the playoffs) … Having two weeks off wasn’t great, but Flin Flon had the same two weeks off. Overall it didn’t go the way we wanted it to. Having the best goalie, who was the best goalie in Canada as far as I’m concerned, didn’t help us.”
Looking ahead to the next season, Thoma noted that six 20-year-olds are moving on, and in the recent draft they picked two forwards and three defencemen. “The draft isn’t going to go away in our league,” he said, adding the schedule for next year will have 58 games, with the advantage of facing Flin Flon and Kindersley at the Showcase in September, which reduces the need to travel for those games during the season.
They will face their Highway 39 rivals, the Estevan Bruins, 10 times this year, and most of their home games will be weekend games.
“In terms of the gate and having good weekend gates, our schedule is more balanced this year, which should help the finances,” said Thoma, noting the league will be going to a three-on-three format in overtime games.
“I’m not a big fan of that. I understand from the fans’ perspective that hopefully games are settled in regulation,” he said.
The fall training camp will run on the Labour Day weekend, Sept. 3-5, including the Red and White game on Monday, and the regular season will start again with a home-and-home series with Yorkton, starting in Yorkton on Friday, Sept. 16, and the home opener on Sept. 17.
From the financial report, brought by Brent Stephanson, the issue of whether financial reports were done properly or not arose, with the board taking criticism for this not being handled until the treasurer was removed about three weeks ago.
The total revenues for the year was $372,400, of which $280,800 was from the regular season, and $88,568 came from the three home games in the playoffs versus Flin Flon, which is a third of the regular season revenue.
The Wings had $214,547 in corporate advertising, with the boards in the rink and on the ice, which is $23,000 more than last year, and fundraising brought in $105,000. The 50-50 with the Beavers netted the Red Wings $22,983, and then tending bar at the MME fights brought in $27,800 in one night, not counting expenses.
Travel costs for the Red Wings were $98,000, which includes the cost of bussing, meals and hotels. The Red Wings had a profit of $44,765 after all expenses were paid.
In the discussions from the financial report, Jim Onstad brought up two issues, one being that the team’s bylaws are weak and badly need revising, and two, that proper financial reports need to be provided, in particular the audited financial statements, which were not available at the annual meeting. He suggested even moving the annual meeting into August, because the audited statements need to be a part of the annual meeting. They were not available because the end of the fiscal year was May 31, which did not give enough time for an audited financial statement to be done by the auditors, MNP.
Director Jean Hobbs noted that several other teams in the SJHL are in the same position, taking May 31 as the fiscal year-end as the Royal Bank Cup national championship is held in May.
“I think we need to pay more attention to the financials, which hasn’t been done in the past,” said Onstad, adding that the bylaws “are very weak” and need to be strengthened, pointing the bylaws don’t even say how many directors should be on the board.
“People don’t think the bylaws are very important, but it’s what runs your corporation. You have to pay attention to the details of how a corporation works when it runs on a half-million dollar budget,” said Onstad, saying he would fund any costs associated with revising the bylaws with the use of legal advice.
On the issue of financial reports, Stephanson said Joanne Bresciani has been helping him in the last three weeks get a handle on where the finances were, with the most recent information coming in the day of the annual meeting. Prior to that, he said, the treasurer (who was not named) had only provided what the bank balance was on the day of a board meeting.
Some members of the audience were incredulous that this occurred in the past season after having to go to the public with news of a financial crisis last year, with Winston Bailey telling Larry Tribiger at one point that this was his responsibility.
“It’s your responsibility to make sure you’re on top of the financials,” added Onstad. “You want to keep this team running, and we have to do everything we can to keep it running. When you take on directorship, you become responsible for the company you’re representing.”
After more discussion on these issues, Onstad moved to review the bylaws prior to the start of the next hockey season, and he noted he will financially assist this and help with the revision. He declined being nominated to the board, as he is busy with his company responsibilities, but will work with the team to do whatever he can to help.
Among the new board members acclaimed to the board were Mark Schneider, Michell Giroux, John Corrigan, Wendy Forsberg, Shawn Cox, Scott Pohl, Dave Lazurko and Shawn Crandall, joining Larry Tribiger, Val Tribiger, Pete Tatarliov, Jean Hobbs, Ron Fellner and Brent Stephanson.
