Portland sold; Brandon gets Cup

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
Meetings held by the WHL’s board of governors frequently are uneventful.
Not this time.
Following a meeting Wednesday in Calgary, WHL commissioner Ron Robison
announced:
l The transfer of ownership of the Portland Winter Hawks has been approved;
l The Brandon Wheat Kings have been awarded the right to play host to the
2010 Memorial Cup; and,
l Random drug-testing of WHL players is to begin next month.
The WHL hopes that the sale of the Winter Hawks, for an undisclosed price
that is believed to be in the neighbourhood of US$7 million, including
assumed debt, will close at month’s end.
Bill Gallacher, a Calgary-based businessman, made a presentation to the
governors yesterday. Gallacher is the president and chief executive officer
of the Avenir Capital Corporation of Calgary.
“He is the sole investor at the present time,” Robison said during a
conference call that didn’t include Gallacher. “We do have a local ownership
component that he is exploring and he is in discussion right now with
several groups.
“We have full confidence that Bill has the resources . . . to do it on his
own if necessary.”
The Winter Hawks, who lost 5-2 to the Chiefs in Spokane last night, are on their bus headed for Brandon and a Friday game with the Wheat Kings. There aren’t likely to
be any changes made before the deal closes.
But as was first reported at gdrinnan.blogspot.com and in The Daily News of
Aug. 15, former NHL assistant coach Mike Johnston will be the franchise’s
general manager and head coach, with former NHL player Travis Green the
assistant coach. Garry Davidson, a longtime BCHL owner and coach, will be
the head scout and his son, Ty, will be on the scouting staff.
Ken Stickney, who ran the Las Vegas Thunder for nine years in the
now-defunct IHL and has long been with Mandalay Bay, will relocate to
Portland and operate the business side.
Robison admitted the WHL decided after last season that a change was needed.
The league conducted an audit of the entire Winter Hawks organization and
then met with the owners — Jim Goldsmith, Jack Donovan and John Bryant.
“There are an awful lot of aspects of the franchise that have to come
together both from a point of view of scouting, recruiting, player talent .
. . to the on-ice performance of the team to exciting the market around good
marketing and promotional programs and strong community involvement,”
Robison explained. “When we sat down with the ownership group after the
audit, we felt in a lot of those areas we weren’t achieving the level that
we expect from our franchises.
“We mutually agreed it would be in the best interest for them to pursue the
sale of the team.”
Robison said a number of parties and individuals expressed interest in the
Winter Hawks, who are 28-110-3-3 over the last two seasons, but Gallacher
came to the fore.
“He (has) a great passion for the game of hockey,” said Robison, pointing
out that Gallacher is a senior partner in the BCHL’s Nanaimo Clippers. “He
also has the financial resources and capabilities of turning the franchise
around in that market. The starting point for any successful franchise is
quality ownership and he brings all of those attributes.”
As for Gallacher owning a piece of a BCHL franchise, Robison said, the WHL
doesn’t have any “concerns relative to that at the present time. He can
continue in that capacity . . .”
Robison said Gallacher first expressed an interest in owning a WHL franchise
over a year ago.
“We needed to give (the current owners) sufficient time to explore offers
that were out there,” Robison said. “We came to an agreement with the
current ownership group that Bill Gallacher would be the best candidate for
ownership of the Winter Hawks franchise.”
Robison added that Gallacher already is talking about a new lease in
Portland, where the Winter Hawks play most of their games in Memorial
Coliseum but would prefer to play in the Rose Garden, the home of the NBA’s
Portland Trail Blazers.
l Meanwhile, the Wheat Kings, Everett Silvertips and Kelowna Rockets had
expressed interest in playing host to the 2010 Memorial Cup, May 14-23.
Brandon made its presentation first, after which Everett and Kelowna threw
their support behind Brandon.
“For Brandon, this is going to have meaningful impact on our organization
and our city,” Kelly McCrimmon, the Wheat Kings’ owner, general manager and
head coach, said. “We’ve been 42 years in the WHL and we have never applied.
We just looked at this as possibly being a one-time chance to bring the
event to our city and our province.”
The Wheat Kings served as a co-host of the 1980 tournament. That year, the
event opened in Brandon and closed in the Regina Agridome.
l As for the drug-testing, this is something the WHL has been trying to
implement for a few years now. This time, though, Robison said it will
happen.
“We felt from the outset that the most important aspect of this program was
education,” he said, “that we needed to make sure that all of our players
were fully aware of the banned substances and the type of program we’re
entering into, and we spent a considerable amount of time on that phase of
the program.”
The OHL will join the WHL in testing for the first time this season, while
the QMJHL is into its third season.

gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca