Vipers Get Shaft:

This is in yesterdays Morning Star Newspaper:

Vipers get shaft

By Kevin Mitchell - Vernon Morning Star Published: April 12, 2009

Harvey Smyl and the Langley Chiefs will play out of the amazing 4,000-seat Langley Events Centre next B.C. Hockey League season. And should the Chiefs win the Fred Page Cup and advance to the regional Doyle Cup series against the Alberta champions, I doubt if they will have any problem booking the new rink. The Vancouver Giants of the Western League will play their home games in the new Langley facility during the 2010 Winter Olympics. It's nice to see co-operation, something that doesn't happen in Vernon. For the second time this decade, the Vipers, should they win the BCHL championship, will be booted out of their home rink, where they are the No. 1 tenant, and forced to play games in ancient Civic Arena. It's a joke and it's unfair. The Vipers use Wesbild Centre more than seven months of the year. The logging show, which goes every two years, uses the facility for almost a week, taking set up and closing into consideration. Nowhere else in the BCHL or WHL would the people running their No. 1 tenant's building allow such a travesty to take place. BCHL commissioner John Grisdale, who opened up the league's first office in 2003, was at Wesbild Centre for Games 3 and 4 of the Fred Page Cup. He, like the thousands of Vipers fans, doesn't like seeing the team pushed out of the building. "We do leave it up to our individual markets and governors. It's the old story, if you make it this far, then you've got a problem. If you don't make it this far, then the community arena that loses money needs to be able to put the venues in. We're kind of big tricks in between. "I'll leave that to Duncan (Viper owner Wray) to work out with the mayor. I hope to be able to sit down with Duncan and the city to really talk about their contract; they haven't had one for seven years and kind of give it a league perspective, how other guys are having to deal with. Absolutely, it's disconcerting when we get to our championship series or the Doyle Cup, we're not able to play in one of our premier buildings." Wray and regional district officials need to sit down and draw up a new contract whereby the Vipers can have some flexibility and preference with scheduling. Why can't the logging show go back to the rec complex parking lot should the Vipers have a long playoff run? Grisdale and David Sales do a fine job operating the 16-team league, considered the best Junior A loop in the country. Attendance was down in some markets due to the recession. "I think pretty much how it's (recession) going to affect all of sports really," said Grisdale, 60, who played defence with the Canucks and Leafs back in the day. "I think we're going to find not only at a team level, but at a league level, we're going to find the sponsors are going to take a second look at what they're doing with their dollars. We're hearing various things from different markets." The league will welcome back Williams Lake TimberWolves next season, giving Prince George and Quesnel a natural rival again. Grisdale says they added a beer garden to the arena which adds 200 more seats for increased revenue. The T-Wolves are also close to hiring a head coach. "They're out their recruiting. The difficulty Williams Lake has in the B.C. Hockey League getting a team going is they can't start signing players until June. It's tough because they don't have a core group of guys coming back." For Viper fans, the revival of the Lake City will likely mean at least one less home game against arch-rival Salmon Arm. And with Quesnel and Alberni Valley coming off 16-win seasons and Merritt (who are in financial problems) posting just 13 Ws, is there enough bonafide talent to fill a new franchise? "There's lots of players," said Grisdale. "The question is, is there enough players to be competitive? If you ask the question around our table, you'd probably find there's probably enough top-end players to fill only eight teams. And that has never changed since the year I came in. With 140 Junior A teams across Canada, the talent is spread pretty thin." Grisdale believes the new rules have allowed the skilled players a better chance to showcase their stuff. "I think our game is faster now, but we're watering the talent down and I'm not sure our base is really kind of growing. The Western Hockey League is bringing more and more of the young kids in and burning them in allowing them to play that one game. We're finding the top-end players harder to find, at least in B.C. And we're not allowed to inter-branch 17-year-olds which we we used to be able to do prior to 2000. So all of those are having an overall affect on the calibre in our league. "But I think every year, that's a pretty good team and that's a pretty good Fred Page Cup, and I don't know how we can get any better. And I look out there now and Vernon's a pretty damn good team, and so is Powell River." Governors across the Canadian Junior A League agreed several years ago to ban European players. Vernon fans used to marvel at the likes of Roland Ramoser (Italy), Tommi Virkunnen (Finland). Future NHLer Jan Bulis played for the Kelowna Spartans. Chilliwack had an all-star, Ilia Borischev, from Russia. The bigger markets were able to pay the fees European agents wanted for their players. Greed forced the Canadian teams to nix the Euro rule. Now, the best foreign players (except for Americans) can only play in the major junior Canadian Hockey League. Grisdale favours bringing back the Euros. "I think our league would be able to work our way through it through having a quota on a team and the league being able to guarantee a certain amount." He said there has been talk about a draft for the top 15-year-olds, whereby teams could use them up to five times before they turn 16. The draft would promote equity and boost the league's marketing.