Peninsula Sports offers a two-part series dealing with the Kenai River Brown Bears Junior A hockey team, which plans to suspend operations now that the 2016-17 regular season has ended.
Part One: Brown Bears announce suspension of operations, spawning a Save the Bears movement.
The Kenai River Brown Bears Junior A hockey team closed-out its regular season in Fairbanks this past weekend. dropping three games to the Fairbanks Ice Dogs. The Brown Bears end the 2016-17 season with a record of 12-46-2-0.
The Kenai River Brown Bears may very-well have closed their doors on Junior A hockey; the Brown Bears at an NAHL meeting in Ann Arbor last month, declaring that they would be “dark” for the 2017-18 season.
Brown Bears General Manager Nate Kiel explained the decision to halt operations.
Nate Kiel: “ We’ve made the decision and one thing that we’ve dissolved, formalized, if you will at the Board of Governors meeting in Ann Arbor—the Bears will not operate in 2017-18. We will be officially inactive in the North American Hockey League.”
A Save the Brown Bears movement has evolved from the announcement of the Brown Bears closing their doors; the first order of business will be to raise enough money for the Brown Bears to prove to be viable for the 2017-18 season and to establish a financial base for future operations.
Representing the Save the Brown Bears movement, Steve Stuber.
Steve Stuber: “We need $300,000 by April 15th. The sponsors have been just awesome over the years, people have given all that they can; but obviously we’re not reaching everybody. The awesome thing is the Fairbanks Ice Dogs have agreed to help finance us. We’re working with the city to see if there’s a possibility of some waived ice fees, maybe we can meet in the middle there.”
Among the major obstacles for the Kenai River Brown Bears: number one has to be the travel costs involved in running a team from Alaska; secondly, filling the seats at the Soldotna Regional Sports Center for home games, third, the win-loss record-you have to win games for people to stay interested in your program; and another concern is the local talent involved with the Kenai River Brown Bears.
Today, we’ll isolate on travel costs and attendance; on Tuesday’s show, we’ll talk about the win-loss record, performance on the ice and the use of local talent.
Travel
Playing in the Midwest Division, the Brown Bears not only have to fund their own travel outside, they also have to help subsidize the travel teams coming to Alaska. Travel costs could be reduced with the addition of a third Alaska team; an idea being batted around in the Anchorage area.
Stuber explained possible travel cuts based on possible new team entering the league.
Stuber on travel: “Obviously Anchorage has lost the Aces, they’re gone, well now there’s a huge vacuum in Anchorage.to bring another team in. There’s a group of people looking to hopefully bring an NAHL team into Anchorage. Then we would have three teams locally which would cut our travel costs amazingly. By this time next year we might have a team in Anchorage looking at the following year our travel cost would be one-third less.”
Alaska had a third Junior A team, the Alaska Avalanche, they have since left Alaska due to financial hardship.
Attendance
With travel costs being a majority of the budget issue, let’s look at attendance.
At the Soldotna Regional Sports Complex, the Brown Bears have no turnstile numbers or actual paid ticket sales numbers for the Brown Bears to base their previous tickets sales on. Based on the Brown Bears released attendance numbers for the month of March for the March home games through the 18th, the Brown Bears averaged just 407 people in attendance for Brown Bear games.
Stuber discussed attendance numbers at the Sports Center.
Steve Stuber: “ I don’t have that (attendance and ticket sales information). I know that the record is right around 1200. I would have said 4-6 (hundred) is the number would have been my quess. I think that’s pretty typical; we have a pretty die-hard set of fans that win, loss or draw are there.”
Purchased tickets at the door and season tickets will be the life-blood for the Brown Bears to make up the difference in their funding.
Stuber explained season ticket plans.
Steve Studer: “The other way to show how we care is we can buy season tickets for next year. Nobody has to put any money out right now; if the team is reactivated, they can buy a set of season tickets for next year for $249. Here’s the deal. I have given away tickets and tickets and tickets; most of those people could afford to pay at the door. We’re saying hey do one small thing, really a big thing to an individual but it shows support. One little thing and if we all do it-if we sell 500 season tickets, it’s half the money we need to stay alive for the whole year.”
Actually based on the $300,000 needed to be raised by April 15th, 500 season tickets would be closer to a third of the money that the Brown Bears need to survive for a complete hockey season. (Actual total yearly expenses were not given by Stuber).
In the current Alaska economy, the Kenai Peninsula’s economy and in the battle for your entertainment dollars; money is going to be the issue for the Kenai River Brown Bears.
Tomorrow (Tuesday) on Peninsula Sports we’ll take a look at the other factors: win-loss record, use of local talent and volunteerism in the community.
Part Two: Kenai River Brown Bears financial success tied to win-loss record and exposure for local talent. Brown Bears provide community service opportunities.
The Kenai River Brown Bears Junior A hockey team closed-out its regular season this past weekend; today, part two of our look at the Kenai River Brown Bears and a movement to possibly save the Brown Bears and possibly keep Junior A hockey on the peninsula.
In part one we focused on money and expenses, travel costs and gate receipts; today we’re going to take a look at win-loss records, the local talent pool and the community service provided by the Kenai River Brown Bears through the Kenai Peninsula Youth Foundation.
Program Win-Loss Records
Winning will put bottoms in the seats and attendance will improve as your team shows the ability to win games. The Kenai River Brown Bears have recorded the worst win-loss record in the Midwest Division for the past three seasons,; dwindling attendance and a lack of home money is a major contributing factor towards the Brown Bears financial decline. The Brown Bears have had a loyal following; however, not the attendance needed to fund the program which must cover their own expenses and some of the travel expenses for their opponents venturing to Alaska for Junior A hockey games.
Kenai River has not made the playoffs since 2014; three-straight losing seasons, including a record of 4-51-0-4 in 2015-16 and this year’s record under 15 wins in a 60-game season. The Brown Bears best, recent record in 2014-15, 16 wins and 42 losses.
Local Talent Given Opportunity
Area hockey fans, like sports fans everywhere will turn out and watch a winning program. They’ll also turn out to the Soldotna Regional Sports Complex to watch local talent play. One of the issues with the Kenai River Brown Bears is the lack of local players in the 10-year history of the Brown Bears.
Brown Bears General Manager Nate Kiel: “Over the last decade, 12 KPHA Ice Hawks had the opportunity in the past 10 years to don the Brown Bears jersey which I think is just a credit to the Ice Hawk organization.”
Each season with roster additions and changes, players being either cut or injured; between 40-50 names appear on the Brown Bear roster having played in at least one contest for the Brown Bears. Extrapolate that out and between 450-500 athletes have played for the Brown Bears; 12 of which have come from the Kenai Peninsula.
A number of peninsula hockey players have gone on to play Junior hockey just in the past three or four years and are making major contributions for their programs outside of Alaska.
Community Service
The Kenai River Brown Bears, through the Kenai Peninsula Youth Foundation, have been a major factor in community service throughout their years here on the Kenai. Steve Stuber describes the volunteer efforts of the Kenai River Brown Bears.
Steve Stuber:
“Well I’d like everyone to remember that it’s the Kenai Peninsula Youth Foundation as well. Forty percent of the people I’ve talked to don’t realize that the Brown Bears aren’t just hockey. They volunteer at the local Boys & Girls Club, they do reading at our local schools, they do charity drives for the food bank and for clothes for the homeless. I’m hoping that the community binds together to realize it’s not just hockey.”
The Save the Brown Bears campaign is on-going trying to raise $300,000 by April 15th. For more on the Kenai River Brown Bears, go to their website at www.kenairiverbrownbears.com.
