In Mike Griffin’s view, the Brampton Battalion’s problems as
a business entity started before the first puck was dropped in the inaugural
season of 1998-99.
“If there was a time the Battalion was going to be
successful off the ice, it would have been before the start of the first season,”
said Griffin, who became club president early in the 1999-00 season.
“You’d get 1,500, 2,000 season tickets and the corporate
support and go from there. They couldn’t sell half the boxes and never got to a
thousand season tickets despite the money that was spent to promote and market
the team. Right away you didn’t have the foundation and, when I looked to the
future, the key was getting that foundation, and it never happened.”
The Battalion averaged 2,417 fans over 34 home dates in the
first season and peaked at 2,734 in 2005-06.
The club, which will relocate to
North Bay next season, is averaging more than 2,100 fans a game in its final
campaign in Brampton.
“There was a core of probably 500 people, and the problem
was you needed four times that many,” said
Griffin is a native of North Bay, which
saw its previous OHL team, the Centennials, move to Saginaw, Mich., and renamed
the Spirit for the 2002-03 season.
“When I came in, that horse was already out of the barn. The
red flag probably should have gone up in Year 1 when they didn’t have the boxes
full and you didn’t have all the season tickets you needed.”
Griffin said the Battalion had a number of successful
off-ice initiatives including its Adopt-A-School program, the Tim Hortons
national anthem program, between-period minigames, its fundraising efforts for
Stephanie’s Place and Saves for Kids for the Brampton hospital, its
relationship with the Rotary Club which raised more than $450,000 through gameday
50/50 draws and saw Battalion players distribute free dictionaries to
grade-school pupils.
But Griffin felt the club’s group sales program was its top
off-ice achievement.
“We built a group sales program because we had to. Without
it you’d see 1,200 people a game here. That’s a credit to the people who built
it: Darryl Bricknell, Jim Mallory, Amy Merrithew, Amanda Stavrou and Erin
Meagher. They all did a great job on that.
“Over the years our players made hundreds of appearances at
schools and that was also a benefit for the players as they gained confidence
from speaking in public. As an organization we were fortunate to have players
who wanted to participate in the community and some of the best of those were
Brock McPherson, Ken Peroff, Sam Carrick, Cameron Wind, Zach Bell and Bryan
Pitton.”
The Battalion’s Elementary School Hockey Tournament, the
brainchild of front-office member Phil Ercolani, was also popular.
“That was Phil’s creation,” said Griffin, “and he put a lot
of time and effort into making the event a success every year since it started
in 2006.”
Griffin said Battalion owner Scott Abbott could have opted
out of the Powerade Centre lease after the 10th season in 2007-08.
“Scott didn’t walk away, and he could have done that after
the 10th season and made it a legal issue in terms of breaking the lease. I
give him credit for not doing that.
“As the guy on the front end of the business side, I was
saying that Brampton cannot work, that we had tried everything. We had the Ivey
School of Business come in and analyze our plan and business model and tell us
we had done everything we could do.
“There came a time when I told Scott that the Brampton market
was not going to change. I did an evaluation of different markets, and over the
course of the last three or four years I gave Scott the pros and cons of each
market. It kept coming back that North Bay would be the one because I had the
personal relationships and had a feel for it.
“What I had to do was address the negatives, because every
market had one or two or three or 10. The facility was a key one to deal with,
and we had to come up with a plan. I worked with the city and told them what we
needed to do.”
The move to North Bay was announced in November, contingent
on the community purchasing at least 2,000 season tickets for a minimum of
three years. That number was achieved in six days, and the total now stands at
more than 2,300. The relocation was approved in a unanimous vote of the Ontario
Hockey League’s board of governors Nov. 19.
“When I told them the deal was contingent upon 2,000 season
tickets, a lot of people thought we were pushing the envelope,” said Griffin.
“But I had a sense that because of the history, going back to the campaign to
save the Centennials, that it would work and we might as well find out. If we
couldn’t get that base to a certain level, I would have told Scott we were
wasting our time.”
Another item that needed to be addressed was a renovation of
North Bay’s Memorial Gardens, a facility that dates to 1955. North Bay city
council approved a $12-million renovation that will include a reconfigured ice
surface, more seats, private boxes, a new dressing room and administrative
offices for the Battalion, a video scoreboard and an HVAC system.
“On a daily basis we’re talking to the architect and the
project manager,” said Griffin. “It’s a joint venture. I’ve seen the plans and
the building schedule, and we’re very confident we’ll be in the building for
training camp. We won’t play exhibition games there, because we want that
buffer of time. The budget is key, but the people who are in the know are
optimistic. We don’t want fans to notice if there are pieces of the puzzle that
aren’t finished for the home opener.”
Griffin said the organization has to be ready when the doors
open for the first time.
“I’ve had business people up there tell me we’ll sell out
every game next season. I’m not that optimistic, but we are going to have
significant crowds on a regular basis. We’re going to have to train people and,
from a staffing standpoint, we’re going to have to make sure they’re ready for
the first game, because there’ll be no freebies from the fans. The fans will expect things to
be done properly. It’s just not a case of opening the doors and here they come.
We have concessions to worry about and many other items.
“We’re going to need more staff. Our season ticketholders
are the most important people for us up there right now. Then we need to reach
out to people. We’re close to everything up there. We’ll be in all the schools
and we’ll need to be very well organized.”
Griffin said the club is ready for the scrutiny that will
come from being a leading entity in the community, which had more than 53,000
residents as of 2011.
“If we treat the fans and media with respect, they’ll respect
us back. Are they going to voice their opinion if things aren’t going as well
as we might want? Absolutely, but I don’t think it will be a vicious
environment. If we put a good product on the ice and do what we have to do off
the ice in the concourses, ticket office, merchandise areas and in the
community, we’ll be fine.”
Griffin said he appreciated the loyalty of the Battalion’s
longtime fans in Brampton.
