The Grande Prairie Storm is hoping a new three year agreement with the city for the use of Revolution Place will help alleviate some of their financial woes.
Due to short or non-existent play off runs in the past few years, the team has found costs rising and revenue down.
Board Chairman Chris Luhtala says it can get pretty pricey operating a team this far north.
“When we go on the road, aside from Fort McMurray, we travel the most. Hotel costs have gone up, food costs have gone up, gas is up. There’s just lots of costs that have increased over the span of about 5 years.”
But Luhtala says those aren’t the only two factors responsible for their $150,000 deficit.
“Not making the playoffs was hard on us, plus, we were actually budgeting off of the season before when the NHL lockout happened. We had seen increased revenues because of that, but it wasn’t really accounted for properly moving forward. That was a lesson learned.”
The new agreement also proposes a 65% to 35% cost sharing agreement with the city once the club is able to break even.
“With the aggressive budget that we’ve come in with to make sure that we’re not losing money anymore, if we have a decent season with decent attendance, the playoffs would be within that $20,000 to $30,000 range, and the city would get 35 per cent of that.”
The deal averages out to around $95,000 over three years for the use of Revolution Place.
City Council has yet to make a decision on the deal.
