Cranbrook Bucks Expansion Franchise Joins BCHL:

This was in the Cranbrook Daily Townsman Newspaper:

Cranbrook Bucks expansion franchise joins BCHL

Hockey will be back in Cranbrook for the 2020-21 season after the departure of the WHL last March 

Trevor Crawley

Oct. 8, 2019     Sports

The Cranbrook Bucks is the newest BCHL franchise.

In front of a crowd of fans and dignitaries at Western Financial Place, Nathan Lieuwen — the majority owner and president — announced the newest team to compete in the provincial Jr. A league, alongside BCHL Commissioner Chris Hebb and Cranbrook mayor Lee Pratt.

“I’m very excited and proud to bring you this announcement today. It’s been a lot of hard work and a lot of long days. To get to this point is very special,” Lieuwen said. “…We look forward to working with our community and the surrounding areas in building lasting relationships and partnerships. We’re excited to be part of the Cranbrook scenery and the hockey behind it.”

The Bucks will compete in the 2020-21 BCHL season

Lieuwen, a WHL alumni with the former Kootenay Ice, is joined by fellow alum Adam Cracknell in the ownership structure, along with Scott Niedermayer, a Hall of Fame NHL defenceman who was raised in Cranbrook. Others with an ownership stake include Craig Shostak and Steve King, who are also owners of the Cardiff Devils, a hockey franchise in the British Elite Ice Hockey League.

Niedermayer credited Lieuwen’s passion and excitement for getting a hockey team in Cranbrook as a reason for getting involved with the effort.

“Especially seeing his passion and how excited he was about trying to do this made it very, very easy for me to say yes,” said Niedermayer.

Both King and Shostak have a hockey background and work in business based out of Calgary. Cracknell is continuing his professional hockey career in the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) with the Kunlun Red Star in China.

Hebb said Lieuwen reached out to him roughly a year ago to explore the possibility of a franchise in Cranbrook.

“About a year ago, I was getting phone calls and emails from some young guy who thought he could bring a team to your city and his name was Nathan Lieuwen,” said Hebb. “We talked a lot and back and forth and we handed him hoops and he jumped through them and we handed him another and he jumped through it.

“Here we are today with a situation that brings the 18th BC Hockey League team to Cranbrook.”

Hebb noted four pillars with the league— speed and skill, player safety, education, and community.

“Having driven around Cranbrook are for the last couple of days, I think this is a community that is going to do the BC Hockey League proud,” Hebb said.

A BCHL franchise coming to Cranbrook carries a $1.2 million expansion fee.

Hebb also hinted at a league realignment, noting that franchise governors have been in ongoing discussions.

“We’re probably going to have an interior division that Cranbrook fits into,” Hebbs said. “We may stay with three divisions: Interior, Lower Mainland and Island. But I would also ask our competition committee to come back with some ideas where maybe there are four divisions, some six-team divisions, some four-team divisions.

“But that’s going to be decided by the hockey minds and that will be announced with in the next three months.”

Cranbrook Mayor Lee Pratt said the BCHL is an exciting brand of hockey that features high quality players who have gone on to NHL careers.

“We considered a lot of options that would fit into Western Financial Place including the number of fans, fan experience, and the long term sustainability of the franchise,” said Pratt. “These discussions were not taken lightly, and for hockey fans in Cranbrook and the surrounding area, this will be exciting for them to watch for many years to come.”

In an interview following the announcement, Pratt noted that there was interest from other groups working to bring a hockey team to Cranbrook, but noted Lieuwen’s BCHL option was the best fit.

“When we put out the RFP for interest, he was the only one that came back with a league proposal and a business proposal that made sense so from there, then it started to go deeper into the mechanics of it.”

The RFP was a questionnaire that requested potential bidders and ownership groups to provide details on aspects such as management and operations, market research, marketing and community engagement, hockey operations, food and beverage, and lease rates.

The city was left reeling after a messy break-up with the WHL’s Kootenay Ice last January. After 21 years in Cranbrook, new ownership relocated the team to Winnipeg and still have an outstanding lease agreement valid until 2023.

Pratt confirmed the city remains in negotiations with the Ice over the agreement.

He also denied that the water leakage issues around the arena barrel roof would hinder hockey operations next season— a fix that is estimated to cost $3 million as part of an overall estimated $5.6 million roofing project for the entirety of Western Financial Place.

While there is no hockey in the city this season, the KIJHL rules the roost, with franchises in Creston, Kimberley, Fernie and Invermere.

KIJHL president Larry Martel says he is happy to see hockey back in Cranbrook and that the league has a good partnership with the BCHL.

“The KIJHL has a strong developmental hockey model and we promote many players from the KIJHL to the BCHL, AJHL, SJHL and MJHL Jr A leagues,” Martel said. “Having a team this close by for East Kootenay teams could turn out to be another recruiting tool. We have several teams located very close to BCHL franchises and its always been a very positive relationship between the teams and great for the hockey player and local fans.”

This is posted on BCHLnetwork.ca

BCHL adds Cranbrook Bucks as league’s 18th team

Written by Brian Wiebe on October 8, 2019

The BC Hockey League is expanding to Cranbrook.

The league announced today that the Board of Governors approved adding the city in the East Kootenay region of BC as the league’s 18th franchise, with play set to begin in the 2020-21 season.

The Cranbrook Bucks fill the junior hockey void left in the city after the Western Hockey League’s Kootenay Ice left for Winnipeg at the end of the 2018-19 season. The announcement came a day after images surfaced on the ticket website ShowPass with what would end up being the Bucks logo and an address in Cranbrook.

“We are pleased to add Cranbrook as the 18th member of the BC Hockey League,” said BCHL Commissioner Chris Hebb. “The city already has a rich hockey history and we are excited to see them add to that legacy and bring BCHL hockey to another great community in our province.”

Prior to the Ice moving to Cranbrook for the start of the 1998-99 season, the city had a very successful junior A team. However, the Colts were actually first established as a junior B team in 1971. After 20 years in the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League, the club joined the Fernie Ghostriders, Kimberley Dynamiters and Trail Smoke Eaters as the new Kootenay Division of the Peace-Cariboo Junior Hockey League. For that 1991-92 season, the league was christened as the Rocky Mountain Junior Hockey League. Cranbrook was a flagship member of the RMJHL, advancing to the league finals four times in seven years and coming out with a championship in 1995, 1997 and 1998.

Cranbrook didn’t have much luck in the provincial junior A Mowat Cup championship, being swept 3-0 by BCHL teams in all three trips to the best-of-five final. The Colts lost to Chilliwack in 1995 and South Surrey in 1997 and 1998. After the 1997-98 season, the team folded to make way for the Ice, but during its time in the RMJHL produced two future NHLers in Brad Lukowich and Jon Klemm.

“We are extremely excited to bring a BCHL franchise to Cranbrook and the East Kootenay,” said Bucks majority owner Nathan Lieuwen. “The Cranbrook Bucks Hockey Club looks forward to being a proud member of the Cranbrook community and surrounding areas for many years to come. We are grateful for all parties involved in bringing the BCHL to Cranbrook and we can’t wait for the puck to drop for the 2020-21 season.”

The BCHL didn’t officially announce the fee the Bucks will pay to join the league, but the expansion franchise came with a price tag of $1.2 million. The ownership group is led by Lieuwen, NHL Hall of Famer Scott Niedermayer, pro hockey player Adam Cracknell, and Craig Shostak and Steve King, who also own the Cardiff Devils of the British Elite Ice Hockey League. Lieuwen and Cracknell are former Kootenay Ice players while Niedermayer was raised in Cranbrook.

Lieuwen, who’s from Abbotsford, played 11 games in the BCHL with the Westside Warriors in 2007-08 before joining the Ice for a four-plus season WHL career. The 28-year-old had a six year pro career in the AHL and ECHL before retiring in 2017 to join Kootenay as a video coach. He played seven games in the NHL with the Buffalo Sabres in 2013-14, finishing with a 1-4-0 record, a 2.98 goals-against average and a .906 save percentage.

Niedermayer’s Hall of Fame resume speaks for itself, but the four time Stanley Cup champion played his midget hockey in Cranbrook during the 1988-89 season and scored 92 points in 62 games. After that, he embarked on a three year WHL career with the Kamloops Blazers and was the 3rd overall pick by the New Jersey Devils in the 1991 NHL Entry Draft. Despite his ties to the WHL, Niedermayer’s son Jackson is currently playing in the BCHL with Penticton and committed to the University of Arizona for the 2021-22 season.

Cracknell didn’t play junior A hockey, but he did skate for a season in junior B with the Vancouver Island Junior Hockey League’s Saanich Braves before four seasons in Cranbrook with the Ice. The 35-year-old is playing this season in China with the Kunlun Red Star of the Russian-based Kontinental Hockey League.

Although the Wenatchee Wild was considered an expansion team when it joined the BCHL in 2015, it was already an established franchise in the North American Hockey League. The Bucks represent the first “true” expansion team built from scratch since 2002 when the Williams Lake TimberWolves joined. Although the T-Wolves took a leave of absence in 2007 and rejoined the league in 2009, they weren’t really a true expansion team because of being restarted from an existing franchise.

The population of Cranbrook is 19,259 (2016 census), which makes it the 13th largest market in the BC Hockey League, ahead of only Salmon Arm, Alberni Valley, Powell River, Trail and Merritt. The Bucks will play out of the 4,264-seat Western Financial Place. The arena, which is owned and operated by the City of Cranbrook, was built in 2000 at a cost of $22.6 million.

With the addition of an 18th team, the BC Hockey League will need to realign its divisions for the 2020-21 season. What we do know is that the Bucks will join the Interior Division. How that impacts the remaining 17 teams remains to be seen. It’s less likely to have a major effect on the Island Division, but definitely could on the Mainland Division (if Prince George moves back to the Interior) and most certainly will on Merritt, Penticton, Salmon Arm, Trail, Vernon, Wenatchee and West Kelowna.

Hebb has tasked the league’s competition committee to come up with a variety of scenarios regarding division realignment. It’s expected that league Governors will determine a new divisional structure within the next few months. Let the speculation about that begin, it’s already rampant on social media.

With just 11 months until their first game and likely less than six months before the Bucks’ first spring camp, Lieuwen and his group are looking now to get a hockey operations staff of scouts and coaches in place to start building the roster for the inaugural season for the BCHL’s newest franchise.