Former KIBIHT president sees challenges for new group

From The Daily News of Monday, Oct. 27, 2008 . . .

By TRACY WATSON
Daily News Sports Reporter
Fred Cavanagh isn’t all that bothered that a new event has been created to replace the Kamloops International Bantam Ice Hockey Tournament.
What does bug him, though, is that the new event, set for April 8-12, 2009, has chosen to adopt the same name as KIBIHT, the event with which Cavanagh was associated for most of the former tourney’s 40 years before it moved to Langley last month.
Cavanagh can’t help but feel the new KIBIHT is riding on the coattails of the old one.
“Part of it does (bug me), yeah, because if you’re going to do it, good luck. You’re gonna need it,” said Cavanagh, the KIBIHT Society president. “But do it on your own (reputation). Don’t do it on ours.”
The new KIBIHT executive is led by chairman Willy Saari and includes Gerard Hayes, Jason Rende, Rob Fryer and Shawn McCaskill. All are local referees at various levels of hockey, from minor to the WHL.
The referees announced the formation of the new KIBIHT at a Friday news conference at the McArthur Island Sports and Events Centre. (Cavanagh wasn’t invited, and chose not to attend after a public announcement was issued.)
Hayes said Friday that it was their legal advice that, while the old tournament logo was registered under the B.C. Society Act, the name was not and therefore available for anyone’s use.
Cavanagh disagrees.
“My feelings are they can do whatever they want, but they could be in a little bit of legal problems with using the same name. It’s been registered and incorporated, that name, since 1973,” said Cavanagh, who said he has the incorporation papers to prove it, added: “The incorporation sheet . . . does not even have a logo on it. But they are actually both registered.
“The name ‘Kamloops International Bantam Ice Hockey Tournament’ is registered by the Societies of British Columbia, and has been since 1973.”
That’s not the only battle the new KIBIHT may face, Cavanagh continued.
It opened for registration on Friday. By this time last year, Cavanagh’s executive already had a dozen teams signed on.
Then, along the way, it lost nearly that many Alberta teams when that province scheduled its all-star regional team tryouts for the same weekend.
That kind of conflict is what prompted the KIBIHT Society to attempt to move the tournament to a later date, away from Easter weekend, and to change the format to all-star hockey. When the City of Kamloops couldn’t provide the ice time the Society desired, the decision was made to sell the tourney to a group in Langley.
Cavanagh said that by returning to Easter weekend, the new KIBIHT might face the same kind of struggles as did his KIBIHT — the Western Championships are set for April 3-5 and will be played in Manitoba.
“It doesn’t mean anything at this time of year (to have teams register),” Cavanagh said. “But I don’t have a problem with them doing their thing. They’re going to have enough trouble as it is.”
Cavanagh may no longer be working on KIBIHT, but he still has a hand in it by helping out organizers in Langley.
“I’ve been funnelling teams down there that call me, which really doesn’t affect these (Kamloops) guys because it’s a different time of year and it’s a different type of hockey,” Cavanagh said. “But just to give them a hand to get it started and get it over the hump.”
Cavanagh said the Langley tournament will be held April 28 to May 2 (the same weekend the KIBIHT Society wanted here). It will have an all-star format, will be called the Langley International Bantam Ice Hockey Tournament — LIBIHT — and will retain the original tourney logo.
“Everything will be exactly the same,” he said. “Part of the deal with us was the tradition of KIBIHT would remain the same, no matter where it went. Either that or we would shut it down completely.
“We have it in writing that they will maintain the tradition, everything — that’s the banquet, the whole shooting match, right down to the letter, as much as they can. It’s a different location, so some things will change a wee bit. But all the rest of the awards, the whole works, will be the same.”
twatson@kamloopsnews.ca