THE CANADIAN PRESS
Acknowledging his family "grossly overestimated" the appetite for major junior hockey in St. John’s resulting in some big financial losses, Brad Dobbin has asked the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League to approve the sale of the St. John’s Fog Devils to a Montreal businessman.
The league’s board of governors had planned to approve a change in ownership for the Shawinigan Cataractes during a conference call Friday. Dobbin asked QMJHL commissioner Gilles Courteau on Tuesday to add approval of the Fog Devils’ sale to the agenda as well.
The team has been conditionally sold to Farrel Miller, founder and CEO of SportTV.com, which broadcasts sporting events over the Internet. He plans to relocate the team to Verdun, a Montreal suburb, where it will play in the Verdun Auditorium.
Miller has purchased the Fog Devils from owner Derm Dobbin for a little over $3 million, said Brad Dobbin, the team’s governor.
Verdun last housed a QMJHL team in 1994 when College Francais played at the Auditorium.
Renovations to the arena in preparation for the team’s arrival for the 2008-09 season are expected to begin shortly.
The move to Montreal comes despite comments from Courteau to the Moncton Times and Transcript earlier Tuesday.
"Until there’s a new building or a complete renovation of an existing building, we won’t consider putting another team in Montreal," he said.
"There’s nothing that’s close to a suitable facility for major junior hockey here right now."
Brad Dobbin said the team is on pace to equal the $750,000 — "give or take $100,000" — it lost last year, its second in the league after arriving via expansion in 2005.
"If this was any other business," Dobbin said, "we would have pulled the plug long ago."
The latest QMJHL report indicated the Fog Devils were down 4,569 fans as of Jan. 1, a 7.1 per cent drop in attendance from last season. The Fog Devils drew 59,953 fans to the first 18 games at Mile One Centre in 2007-08, an average of 3,331 per game.
That’s a drop of 254 fans per game from the same point last season.
"We thought junior hockey coming to St. John’s was a slam dunk," Dobbin said. "We, along with many more, thought wrong."
The decision to sell the club comes in the midst of negotiations on a new three-year lease with Mile One Centre. The current lease expires at the end of the season.
Dobbin had actually been in contact with St. John’s Sports and Entertainment — which runs Mile One — as late as Tuesday afternoon, and was awaiting a reply from the board on the latest proposal on the table.
But word of the offer from Miller for the Fog Devils — which Dobbin had privately acknowledged — was leaked to RDS Tuesday night, prompting a phone call from Courteau.
The league had set a February deadline for the Fog Devils to outline their plans for next season. With news emerging about Miller and his plans to buy and move the team to Montreal, Courteau indicated to Dobbin late Tuesday he wanted an answer on the Fog Devils’ plans sooner rather than later.
A number of factors have led to the team’s financial demise. One is a travel subsidy which requires the Fog Devils to pick up 100 per cent of the costs associated in the visiting team’s travel to Newfoundland.
Another is the contentious lease with Mile One, which Courteau called the worst in the QMJHL and, perhaps, the entire Canadian Hockey League. Dobbin said the team is paying Mile One $10,000 on each game night to rent the building.
There were other additional costs, like box office and ice rental fees, that latter Dobbin admitted was not out of the ordinary. The deal involving concession stands, he said, was, "a little unfavourable.
"But the big nugget was the rental fee," he said. "At the end of the day, we were never going to generate enough revenue to cover the costs."
And perhaps because of that, he said, there was not a single expression of interest from potential local buyers.
"Not a phone call," he said.
.With 22 regular-season games remaining in the schedule, and playoffs if they go that far, the Fog Devils have become lame duck franchise.
And they’ve done so without first getting a final definitive offer on the lease from SJSE, though both parties have had plenty of time to work a deal.
"No matter what SJSE came back with, even if it was a free lease — and we know that’s not reality; they’re not a charity — the revenue is not there to support the team," he said.
"And we’ve gotten a good indication from our sponsors that if they come back next year, they don’t plan to come back at the same level.
"That was the final nail."
