Diane and Joe Pritchard have found a way to combat the recession.
The proprietors of Billy's Downtown Deli decided earlier this hockey season to extend the Friday night hours for their Dundas Street diner in the hopes they would pack the place with people attending London Knights OHL games at the nearby John Labatt Centre.
The venture has been worth it. Billy's, usually open between 7:30 a.m. and 3 p.m., has been full for what the Pritchards have tabbed Friday Knights.
"Some of our regular customers are mad that we're not open when the Knights play on Thursdays, too," said Diane, whose diner was a popular eating spot when London played host to the 2005 Memorial Cup.
A few blocks east, Dolly Byard shows up for her shift at the Honest Lawyer and thinks to herself: "The Knights must be playing tonight."
The bar-restaurant has more life than usual and more people are grabbing an early bite before the Knights face off against the top-ranked junior team in the country, the Windsor Spitfires.
"This place is definitely busier when the Knights are playing," said Byard, who grew up three blocks from the old Montreal Forum, but has lived in London since 1976.
Not all businesses are thriving in downtown London because of the success of the Knights and the John Labatt Centre. There still are boarded-up stores near the 6-1/2-year-old entertainment complex. But for the most part, since the centre opened its doors on Oct. 11, 2002, and the Knights moved in as the chief tenant, the combination has been a success story.
In cities such as London, junior hockey has become big business across Canada and the United States. But no franchise has undergone such a transformation as the Knights.
The team struggled mightily in the mid-1990s. It played in a deteriorating building on the south end of town and its on-ice performance was as horrible, setting a Canadian Hockey League record for futility at 3-60-3 in 1995-96.
Former NHL player Mark Hunter, along with his older brother, Dale, was at the old London Ice House for the final game that OHL season. The current co-owner of the Knights — then the Sarnia Sting head coach — and Stanley Cup winner with the 1988-89 Calgary Flames didn't need a degree in risk management to see the possibilities.
"Dale and I always had interest in owning a major-junior franchise one day," said Mark Hunter, 46. "I saw 4,000 people in that rink that final game. I saw 4,000 loyal fans for a team that won three games. This is a hockey city."
So when the Tarry family decided to unload ownership of the Knights, the Hunters pounced. They secured a big bank loan by putting up as collateral the mortgages from their farms and homes in nearby Petrolia, to purchase the OHL club for $3.8-million in May of 2000.
If the franchise were sold today, the Hunters could cash in for more than $11-million.
To put that in further perspective, the Spitfires sold for $75,000 in 1976.
The big plus for the Hunters was they knew a $42-million downtown rink — financed by the federal and provincial governments, the city and a public-private ownership group — was in the works.
What the Hunters needed to do was construct an entertaining and contending team to fill the 9,000-seat facility and its 38 luxury boxes.
After breaking even in the final two seasons at the Ice House, the Knights have been a top draw since. Mark Hunter said the Knights went from 1,271 season tickets when they bought the team to 7,000, with another 2,000 on the waiting list. Seldom are there less-than-capacity crowds at Knights games and the success of the 2005 Memorial Cup certainly added value to London club.
"We've been fortunate," Mark Hunter said. "We owe a lot to the city for building this gorgeous rink.
"We make money, we'll never deny that. Sometimes how much we make gets exaggerated, but we make money."
