4
It's been 41 years since the New York Rangers flipped their fledgling junior hockey franchise for $1, getting out of what had been a money-losing enterprise and handing the club over to the community of Kitchener, Ont.
If only Lester Patrick could see them now.
After some lean years in the 1990s, both on the ice and in the books, those same Kitchener Rangers are on top of the junior hockey world. Tonight at the 57-year-old Memorial Auditorium, they will take to the ice as Memorial Cup hosts and favourites, the Ontario Hockey League champions and a cash cow to boot.
“They've got just a tremendous franchise there,” said David Branch, Canadian Hockey League commissioner and OHL president.
Related Articles
In addition to the Rangers, the 90th meeting of junior hockey's elite features the Spokane Chiefs, Gatineau Olympiques and Belleville Bulls, who rallied from a 3-0 series disadvantage in the OHL final only to lose to Kitchener in the seventh game last Monday. The Rangers kick off the tournament against Gatineau, the Quebec league champs, tonight, while Western Hockey League champions Spokane meet Belleville tomorrow afternoon.
It's been a fairy-tale year already for the home side, including a franchise-record 110-point season and the continuation of a seven-year sellout streak that has stretched more than 300 games. The club's 4,200 season ticket holders snapped up most of the available tickets to the Memorial Cup last October, and then bought up a few hundred more when a 450-seat expansion of the Aud was complete in April.
Rangers chief executive officer Steve Bienkowski said the tournament is expected to generate between $10-million and $15-million for the city, and that the organization will have little trouble hitting the $1.8-million profit mark it guaranteed for the OHL when bidding for the event last spring.
In addition to the 6,700 ticket packages sold for more than $500 each, arena concessions are expected to generate up to $1-million.
Kitchener's success has allayed the fears of some that the tournament, after recent stints in Quebec City, London and Vancouver, may have outgrown its roots in small and medium-sized cities. “You should never lose sight of who you really are,” Branch said. “We really are mid- to smaller markets with an added flavour of some great large hockey markets.”
The Memorial Cup has, however, become part of the big business of junior hockey. No team better exemplifies the evolution than the Rangers, not long ago a mom-and-pop operation that nearly became road kill. After losing $180,000 in 1994-95, the club finally hired sales and marketing staff, and Bienkowski, a former Rangers netminder who worked in the private sector as a chartered accountant, took on the books.
A volunteer to start, Bienkowski was chosen president in June of 2000, and accepted the newly created position of CEO in 2002.
The Rangers' revenue rose to more than $1-million by 1999-2000 from less than $500,000 in the mid-1990s. Bienkowski hired current coach and general manager Peter DeBoer in 2001, and he guided the team to its first Memorial Cup win since 1982 two years later. Bienkowski was chosen OHL executive of the year.
Still a community-owned, non-profit organization and run by a 39-member board elected by season ticket holders, Kitchener's revenue approached $5-million this season, which included a surplus of more than $700,000, which will help finance the club's charitable efforts.
And Eugene George, the local businessman who had the foresight to buy the club from New York for $1 all those years ago, is still onboard as a season ticket holder.
“It's a little interesting because you can get a call from one of the 4,200 owners,” Bienkowski said, chuckling. “It works very well in our community.
“We're lucky. All the money we make, we can put back into our operation because we don't have an owner, you know, who wants to build a cottage or something. We don't have to take money away. That helps us.”
“The people of Kitchener really feel like they own that team,” Branch said. “And in fact, they do. It's a great model.”
