Star Blanket shelves Eagles

Page 4

Financial problems have done something that a lot of Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League teams couldn't do this season. They defeated the Lebret Eagles.

The Star Blanket Cree Nation, the owner of the eight-year-old Junior A club, has applied to the SJHL for a one year's leave of absence for the Eagles. In all but name the move means the end of the club.

The club's remaining players as well as the 50 players on its negotiation list will be drafted by other SJHL teams in a conference call, which was scheduled for May 1.

"There will be a dispersal draft of active players as well as those on the 50-man list," said an SJHL source. "Basically, the team's finished."

However, the Eagles will be allowed to keep 10 players on a "come back" list. If the Eagles return in the 2002-03 season, those 10 players are to come back to the club, said SJHL president Wayne Kartush.

Poor attendance, a lack of corporate sponsorship, and an inability to find other investors or buyers forced Star Blanket Cree Nation to ask for the leave of absence, said Chief Clifford Starr.

"We just don't have the resources to operate the team," said the chief. "We haven't been getting the fans over the past few years. We've been getting further and further in debt each year, and we can't operate the team alone. We've been trying to get partners, to get investors, but we haven't been able to."

The Eagles ran on a $325,000 budget last year. However, with poor home attendance and a lack of corporate sponsorship, the Eagles have been a financial hemorrhage for the First Nation.

The band will have to spend the next year trying to do what it couldn't over the past two years when the club was running -getting investors, getting sponsorship, and getting enough money and enthusiasm together to restart the club, added the chief.

"Running a hockey team is a risky business," said Kartush. "They've run into some tough financial situations."

The move also leaves coach and general manager Don Chesney out of a job. His one-year contract, as well as the contract for assistants Charlie Keshane, Jim Hartman and Dan McKay, expires at the end of this month.

"It's disorienting to learn that it's not they don't want me back, there's just no club to come back to," said Chesney.

It's a tough lesson in hockey business for the SJHL's coach of the year. Chesney took a team which won 12 games in a 66-game season last season to a 31-win record in the 2000-01 season, and from the worst record in the SJHL to third place in Sherwood (South) Conference and the conference final, before losing to the eventual league champions, the Weyburn Red Wings.

The performance led Chesney to the SJHL coach of the year award, presented in late April.

Like the last three seasons, the Eagles played to small crowds at the Eagledome. For the past two seasons Lebret has had the second-worst attendance in the SJHL. Ironically they drew fewer fans this season than last season, when they were the worst club in the SJHL. The Eagles drew fewer than 9,300 fans to 31 home games during the 1999-2000 season. They drew only 7,400 for 31 home games in the 2000-01 season.

Only the Notre Dame Hounds, who drew 6,324 fans to Wilcox, had worse home attendance this season.

There are now four junior A hockey teams - three in Manitoba and one in Alberta - that are owned by First Nations, and the supply of talented young Aboriginal hockey players is getting thin thanks to the new clubs, said Chief Starr.

"With the number of Aboriginal teams, it was tougher and tougher to get top-notch Aboriginal players. I guess we'll have to let OCN (Opaskwayak Cree Nation), Waywaysecappo and the Southeast Blades carry the torch in that regard, I guess."

Without its major tenant, the Eagledome will now be made available for minor and recreational hockey, said Chief Starr.

Only one other club has ever asked for a leave of absence from the SJHL. The Saskatoon Jays went on hiatus in the early 1980s and never returned.