The Plight of Canadian Small Market Hockey Teams

Ron Bremner President and CEO, Calgary Flames Hockey Club THE PLIGHT OF CANADIAN SMALL MARKET HOCKEY TEAMS Chairman: Robert J. Dechert President, The Empire Club of Canada

Head Table Guests

John C. Koopman, Principal, Heidrich & Struggles and a Director, The Empire Club of Canada; The Reverend Dr. John Niles, Victoria Park United Church; Ryan Allen, Student, Sir Oliver Mowat Collegiate Institute; Damien Cox, Sports Writer, The Toronto Star; Rod Selling, President, Greater Toronto Hotel Association and Former Hockey Player, New York Rangers and Toronto Maple Leafs; William D. Laidlaw, Immediate Past Chairman, Ontario Chamber of Commerce and First Vice-President and President-Elect, The Empire Club of Canada; Fred Sherratt, Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, CHUM Limited; and Peter Sisam, Vice-President, Canada IMG Canada Ltd.

Introduction by Robert J. Dechert

A famous Canadian once said: "Here's another shot, right in frontthey score! Henderson scores for Canada! And the fans and the team are going wild!"

Is there a Canadian who was alive in 1972 who does not remember those ecstatic words of that great Canadian Foster Hewitt?

Many scholars believe that those words and that event represent a defining moment in the history of our nation.

With that goal, at the height of the Cold War and shortly following the FLQ crisis in Quebec, Canadians were brought together in a single moment of international glory dominating the world in hockey-our national sport.

Hockey has always been our sport but will it continue to be ours in the future?

When Paul Henderson made that goal in 1972, 97 per cent of all NHL players were Canadian. Today, according to The National Post that number has fallen to 56 per cent.

And to add insult to injury a weak Canadian dollar, unsustainable levels of taxation and the unequal economic power of large media markets south of the border now threaten the very existence of some of Canada's venerable small market hockey teams.

Ladies and gentlemen our guest speaker knows very well the plight of such teams in Canada.

Ron Bremner came to the Calgary Flames following a 23-year career in broadcasting and marketing. He graduated from the University of Guelph and began his broadcasting career as a national sales representative with Standard Broadcast Sales in 1972. He joined CKNW radio in Vancouver in 1974 and quickly rose through the ranks to become President of CKNW-AM and CFMI-FM.

In 1990, Mr. Bremner was named President and Chief Executive Officer of BCTV. In May of 1996, he was named BC's broadcaster of the year. And later that year, he was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of the Calgary Flames Hockey Club.

Ladies and gentlemen, please help me in welcoming Mr. Ron Bremner to the podium of The Empire Club of Canada.

Ron Bremner

Reverend Niles, President Dechert, head table guests, ladies and gentlemen:

I'm thrilled to be here in Toronto today to talk about the plight of small market teams in Canada and the National Hockey League. This topic has been debated, discussed and talked about so many times, I feel a little bit like Elizabeth Taylor's eighth husband on his wedding night. You know what you're supposed to do but how do you make it interesting?

People ask me all the time why I haven't jumped off the Canadian Airline Saddledome roof because of all the challenges I face with small market teams, the difference in the dollar and taxes. I've thought about it but the answer is the people I get to work with, the experiences I have and the great times I share with people.

Before we talk about our main topic today, I want to share with you a true story that happened about a year ago that typifies some of the crazy things that happen in this business. I got a phone call about four o'clock in the afternoon from my public relations person. He said: "Ron we have a very special guest coming to the game tonight." I said: "Who is it?" He said: "The late Grace Kelly's son Prince Albert of Monaco. He is going to be at the game tonight. He's at Canada Olympic Park practising with the Monaco bobsled team and the team wants to come to the hockey game." I said: "Great. Bring them to the game. Get all the members of the bobsled team a hat. Give the Prince an official Flames jersey and a hat and: let him enjoy the game." Halfway between the first and second period my public relations person came over to my wife and me and said: "Would you like to meet the Prince at the end of the first period?" "Yes." So we went to meet him and there he was wearing a Flames hat and a Flames jersey, drinking a Molson's beer and eating a hotdog. We had a chat. Just then our old trainer Bear Cat Murray walked by. I thought: "There's a guy the Prince should meet." "Bear Cat come on over here." The Jumbotron's on, the music's going, people are coming by. I said: "Bear Cat here's somebody I'd like you to meet." He said: "Who is it?" I said: "It's Prince Albert." He looks right at him and shakes his hand. "Prince Albert? I grew up in Prince Albert. Was it snowing when you left?" Finally I lean over and say: "Bear Cat this is the Prince Albert."

The subjects of Canadian teams, the future of the NHL and the plight of Canadian small market teams run through our veins and run through our history much like democracy, decency and fairness. And for most of us they hold special memories. In the book "The Game" which I think is probably one of the best sport's classics ever written, my colleague and friend Ken Dryden takes us back to a simpler time, a better time, a time when everything seemed possible. I want to read you one paragraph just to put this game in context.

"But the backyard also meant time alone. It was usually after dinner when the big guys had homework to do. And I would turn on the floodlights at either end of the house and on the porch and I'd play alone. It was a private game. I'd stand there in the middle of the yard, a stick in my hands, a tennis ball in front of me, silent still, and then suddenly I'd dash ahead, stick handling furiously, dodging invisible objects for a shot on net. It was Maple Leaf Gardens filled to widely cheering capacity at a tie game, seconds remaining. I was Frank Mahovolich. I was Gordie Howe. I was anybody I wanted to be. And the voice in my head was that of Leaf's broadcaster Foster Hewitt. There's ten seconds left. Mahovolich winding up at his own line centre, now over the blue line, eight seconds, seven. He comes in on net, he winds up, he shoots, he scores. And then the mesh that had been tied to the bottoms of red metal goal posts until frozen in the ice had been ripped away to hang loose like a flag in the stiff breeze. My arms and stick flew into the air. I screamed a scream inside my head and collected my ball to do it again over and over many times. The hero of all my own games."

Now, as Bob said, this is more than a game. If you ask any American over a certain age where he was when Kennedy died he can tell you. Similarly if you ask any Canadian over a certain age where he was when Henderson scored he can tell you. I was on the Queen Elizabeth Highway at the Bronte Sideroad.

But there's more than emotion to this game. There's a lot more. There's economics. There's 8,600 full-time and part-time jobs for all the teams across the country in the National Hockey League, representing over $300 million in wages and benefits, $211 million in taxes paid to all levels of government and over $1 billion in arena facilities development over the last 10 years and that includes the magnificent new Air Canada Centre in Toronto.

Millions of dollars in Sport-Select lottery money are bet on NHL hockey in this country and NHL teams don't get a cent of that. The lotteries use our schedule, our games and our product and most Canadians that I talk to about this situation don't think that that's fair.

You've heard about the problems before. You've heard about the problem of market size and how Calgary can't compete because we don't have the population. That hurts your television rights, your advertising rights and your ability to be able to track new people to the rink all the time. And I might say if it wasn't for great partners like my friends at Molson to my left here it would be a much tougher struggle for teams like the Calgary Flames.

Add that to the unfavourable exchange rate and it's tough. Last year the exchange rate alone cost the Calgary Flames $12 million on the bottom line. And still we are not asking for a handout. All we're asking for is a hand up. We're saying: "Don't treat us specially. Don't give us any treatment that other companies and industries haven't received." What we are saying is: "Take a look around the landscape and just treat us as fairly as you have treated other businesses-businesses like the book publishing industry which receives assistance to promote Canadian publishing or the technology sector which in 1996 alone received $414 million to help Canadian companies compete internationally. Look at the huge incentives given to the film business to help bring starving actors like Silvester Stallone and Sharon Stone up here to make movies? Just please treat us like these people."

People say they don't want to help rich hockey players. Sure salaries are a problem. But I can tell you this. For the most part Canadian teams have not been the problem.

We're in the entertainment business. Nobody complains about the fact that a grade-12 dropout from Burlington, Ontario, named Jim Carey makes $20 million a movie. That's a lot of money. But you're not going to hurt the hockey players by not helping Canadian teams. Do you think that the hockey players who played for the Quebec Nordiques on Tuesday were suddenly on welfare on Wednesday when they became members of the Colorado Avalanche? Do you think that the hockey players who toiled up and down the ice for the Winnipeg Jets on Thursday were in the food bank line-up on Friday when they suddenly became the Phoenix Coyotes? I don't think so. You're not going to hurt the players.

It's not the players that will be hurt if Canadian teams fold. It's not the players at all. It's the bartenders. Its the guys in the parking lots. It's the Tommy Hendersons who work in- the parking lot at the Canadian Airline Saddledome. It's the Margot Martins who work making popcorn. It's the Freddy Brooks who work as ushers. Those are the people who are going to end up getting hurt the most.

Doesn't it make more sense to have all levels of government work with the teams and ownership to see how they can make this great game grow and see how they can keep this game alive, well, prosperous and healthy in this great country? If we're getting $172 million out of a SportSelect lottery without help from the Canadian NHL teams, think what we might be able to get if the NHL put its copyright behind it, put its trademark behind it, put effort, time and assistance behind it? By working together we could increase that $172 million to $200 million or $250 million. Does it make any sense to lose all the tax money the Canadian NHL teams currently pay? Does it make any sense to lose the identity that the Canadian NHL teams add to the mosaic of our country?

How many times do you think the word Calgary would be mentioned in The Houston Post, The Miami Herald, The Atlanta Constitution or The Los Angeles Times if the word "Flames" wasn't following it? How many times do you think the word Edmonton would be mentioned in The New York Times, The Chicago Sun or any other paper around the world if the word "Oilers" didn't follow it?

We have a lot of emotional equity in this game. Kids and parents go to rinks across this great country at five o'clock and six o'clock on Saturday mornings. NHL teams give back millions to their own communities; in Calgary alone over $13 million in the last 18 years with another $15 million committed over the next 15 years. And they do it in Toronto under Ken Dryden's leadership. They do it in Montreal, they do it in Ottawa, they do it in Edmonton and they do it in Vancouver. They do it everywhere there's an NHL team. Why? Not because they' have to do it but because it's the right thing to do. And as someone once said: "Managers do things right but leaders do the right thing." And NHL teams have been leaders in this country for a lot of years both on and off the ice.

I think this subject is important enough to be talking all over the country about ways that we can work together. I know it's not a politically friendly subject but I'm a taxpayer too. I don't want to see tax money going from education and welfare and health care. But I think there's a tremendous opportunity to be able to work with government at all levels on the lottery funds and be able to see where we can get the best return for all Canadians and keep this great game alive.

I want to leave you with this thought: "It is not just the dreams of people who run NHL teams that I think are important. It is the dream of all those youngsters from St. John's to Victoria who toil endlessly in the rinks and on their ponds and in the arenas across this country because they want to play for the Leafs or they want to play for the Flames or they want to play for the Oilers or the Senators or the Canucks or the Canadiennes." This is a game worth keeping and this is a game worth helping. Thank you very much for your time.

The appreciation of the meeting was expressed by William D. Laidlaw, Immediate Past Chairman, Ontario Chamber of Commerce and First Vice-President and President-Elect, The Empire Club of Canada.