Kevin Berger – Leader Staff
On July 10, I showed up at the evening meeting hosted by WSHL commissioner Ron White and was a little surprised to see that, besides myself, only about five or six people had showed up at the Agrena.
That said, I kind of had a hunch that would happen The story I’d posted to Facebook about the WSHL meeting didn’t seem to get a lot of online traction, at least not in comparison to the story about RCMP stats.
That’s what prompted me to write last week’s editorial calling on Barrhead residents to voice their opinion if they aren’t interested in hosting a team from this U.S.-based hockey league.
In my younger days, I used to report on a Junior ‘A’ Hockey team called the Weyburn Red Wings. Weyburn is about twice the size of Barrhead, and the Red Wings were an old storied franchise within the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League, with lots of past glories.
I wasn’t a good sports reporter, but I did glean a sense of what a tremendous buy-in it requires for a community to host an SJHL team. You need to pull in hundreds of people for home games, you need a small army of volunteers helping to run operations and serving as executives in the franchise, you need a couple dozen families to billet players, you potentially need businesses to hire on players for part-time jobs during off-hours, and so on and so forth.
But enough Weyburn residents loved the Red Wings that they managed to provide the team with the bodies they needed.
Regarding this Barrhead team, we haven’t received any letters on the subject and no one’s called into the office, as far as I’m aware. But we do have an online poll posted on our website, and this week we asked visitors if they were personally interested in the prospect of the WSHL setting up shop in Barrhead.
The results? As of Monday morning, five per cent say yes, 93 per cent say no. That’s not just indifference — that’s active opposition to the idea.
Now, I realize that the Barrhead Leader’s online poll is not exactly representative of the will of the populace. But then I think about how hardly anyone turned out to that meeting, and I’m seeing that there’s a distinct lack of interest in hosting a Junior hockey team here.
And if you don’t have support from the community, a franchise like this just isn’t going to work.
I can understand why Barrhead residents may be reluctant about this whole thing. This is a small community of mostly older people and going to Friday night hockey games where your kids or grandkids aren’t playing probably isn’t your bag.
I myself have a bit of hesitation regarding the tuition thing. Granted, hockey is expensive and parents spend thousands of dollars just to have their kids play minor hockey, but the whole “pay to play” thing doesn’t sit right.
White indicated he would like to come back to Barrhead on Aug. 1 and host another meeting to try and garner the volunteers the team needs. As things stand now, I’m tempted to e-mail him and tell him not to waste his time.
I could still see this franchise moving forward if someone local steps and indicates they’re willing to take an active hand in shepherding this franchise.
But unless that happens, I fear that this might be a lost cause.
