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Bluelines with Ranjan & Greg - Belleville: Requiem for a hockey town

Check out our new BayToday Sports Column "Bluelines." Ranjan Rupal is the play-by-play voice and Greg Theberge, a former NHL player, is the colour analyst for North Bay Battalion games on The OHL Tonight on TVCogeco.

Check out our new BayToday Sports Column "Bluelines."  Ranjan Rupal is the play-by-play voice and Greg Theberge, a former NHL player, is the colour analyst for North Bay Battalion games on The OHL Tonight on TVCogeco.  PHOTO BY LINDSAY SARAZIN.

“You've got to know when to hold 'em.  Know when to fold 'em.  Know when to walk away.  Know when to run.” - Kenny Rogers

To this day, the familiar lyrics of this popular song remain the credo of business.  Intellectually we understand this to be the way business is done, especially when it’s some distant concern, like the closing of a factory in Ohio, or a mill in Iroquois Falls.

But when losses hit close to home, like the Ontario Northland Railway, or the Hospital, and there is pain and sorrow, then Kenny Rogers’ wise words don’t much matter.

It’s sad to hear the Belleville Bulls are moving to Hamilton.  Maybe it’s because we’ve been through it ourselves.  Oddly, it cuts deeper than the Plymouth Whalers’ impending move to Flint.  Perhaps that’s because as Canadians we take ownership of this great game, and American fans couldn’t possibly mourn the loss of a team the way we would.

But like Kenny’s song, the business of hockey is a gamble.

Bulls’ owner Gord Simmonds gambled when he acquired the team back in 2004; gambled that he could build a winner, which he did in 2008; and gambled that a modern arena would be built.  He couldn’t have imagined, a decade later, he’d still be confined to Yardmen Arena, an inappropriate facility by today’s OHL standards. 

So Simmonds held ‘em, and now he’s walking away.  Just like Kenny said.

But why does a hockey town lose its OHL team?

Upon closer inspection, Bulls’ attendance had indeed sagged over the years but not because of an uncompetitive on-ice product.  In 2012-13, the year before the OHL returned to North Bay, the Bulls hosted a sold-out seventh game of the Eastern Conference finals against the Barrie Colts.  Nor did the gate suffer because of a lack of star power: their all-time roster reads like a veritable NHL who’s who.  Was it because, for lack of a better description, Yardmen was a crappy place to watch a hockey game?  Perhaps.

I think the reasons for the Bulls’ demise are many, and what you are about to read serves as a reminder to fans in every OHL market, certainly our own, that maintaining membership in the League is not a right, but a privilege and, as the good people of Belleville have found out, privileges can be taken away.  North Bay’s hockey fans, and its not so hockey fans, would be wise to learn from another city’s disaster and steer clear of the permanent black hole that now exists in Belleville’s local economy and, perhaps more importantly, its civic self-esteem.

This brings me to a conversation I had with Paul Godfrey a few years back.  Then the president and CEO of the Toronto Blue Jays, Godfrey championed bringing Major League Baseball to Toronto in the mid-70’s, and we talked about five key factors, each critical to the success of the Blue Jays.  Though he was speaking of baseball then, I believe his principles are applicable to OHL hockey today:

Godfrey Principle 1:  Positive civic support from your community: In the Battalion’s case, since inception and now in their second season, the fan base has broadened.  Attendance is up 3% from last season, and the critical mass of supporters, those who have attended, or have plans to attend, or who catch games on television or radio, appears more robust than ever.  In contrast, for Bulls’ fans, it’s now painfully clear they had but one responsibility: Show up.  And they didn’t.
Godfrey Principle 2:  Media support: Both North Bay and Belleville television and radio stations have devoted considerable resources to bring games to their respective communities.  While the lack of hockey coverage in our local traditional print media is a sign of the crunch facing the cash-strapped newspaper biz in general, and not solely a phenomenon of this market, digital media, such as this column in BayToday, points to the dawning of new and unlimited possibilities in local hockey coverage.
Godfrey Principle 3:  Political support from the Mayor, Council members:  Notwithstanding the political haymaking that surrounded funding for Memorial Gardens upgrades, the countless hours, the tireless and, sometimes it seems, thankless work by local elected representatives were big reasons why the OHL found a home in North Bay and, in stark contrast, finally gave up in Belleville.
Godfrey Principle 4:  An owner who is well-funded:  It goes without saying that owners like Scott Abbott and Gord Simmonds do not grow on trees, especially in smaller, regional centres like North Bay and Belleville.  Riding the hunches and intuitions of team president Mike Griffin, our owner took a giant leap of faith, one so improbable that North Bay could never be so lucky again, never mind Belleville.
Godfrey Principle 5:  Patience, stamina and people skills:  By this, Godfrey meant the human touch that’s needed to keep your group to one specific and simply understood message about what you want to accomplish.  In his case: to make MLB a reality in Toronto.  In our case it applies to the daily effort required to be a successful OHL market and, while much of this occurs behind the scenes, the fans can judge the results at every game, at every concession stand, in fact, in every facet of the fan experience, from the parking lot, to the box office, to the restrooms, to the way we’re greeted at the gate and then, finally, to the product on the ice.

From this I conclude that by the time Simmonds sold the Bulls, the dye had been cast, the damage done long before, with the yoke of blame resting on the shoulders of every stakeholder: the owner himself, the city council and Bulls’ fans themselves…which brings to mind one final lesson from the Book of Kenny, one that pretty much sums it up:

“He said, "If you're gonna play the game, boy. You gotta learn to play it right.”

Ranjan:  So Greg, I know you’re a big Kenny Rogers fan.  How do you feel about the Belleville Bulls moving?

Greg:  Well, I have mixed emotions.  I thought Belleville, for the longest time, had been a really good small town market, going all the way back to, I believe it was, the Belleville McFarlands who won the World Hockey Championship in 1959.  But, you know, owners have the right to move or sell their franchises if they feel that they want out.

Ranjan:  Who were some of the great players to come out of Belleville?

Greg:  Well, how about a Belleville Bulls all-time all-star team, and there’s only one first-all star team, no second or third.  Sometimes it’s what you do at the OHL level, and that translates to an NHL career.  Sometimes you can just have a great OHL career.  So here you go…starting in goal: Craig Billington.  Back on the blue line you have Al Iafrate and P. K. Subban.  Up front there were a number of great hockey players who came out of that organization. I think I’d put Jason Spezza, Daniel Cleary and Darren McCarty up front.  All-time, all-star coach: I’d have George Burnett.  And the two tough guys I’d like to see would be Cody McCormick, who has Almaguin ties with Wilf Paiement, his father-in-law, having a cottage on Lake Bernard in Sundridge.  And Marty McSorley.  That’s a pretty tough lineup.

Ranjan:  Of course, any discussion about Bulls’ team toughness ought to include Bryan Marchment, and perhaps even former North Bay Centennials’ head coach Greg Bignell.  So you’ve nominated George Burnett as the all-time coach.  Tell me about George…

Greg:  I think what George brought to the Belleville Bulls organization, and that community, was a really good grasp on what teaching hockey is all about.  George played in the OHL with the London Knights and was just 3 points away from scoring 200 points in the League.  A big, pivot centre-ice man like a poor-man’s Joe Thornton, if you will.  He was coach of the year, back-to-back, in Niagara Falls with the Thunder in ’91 and ’92.  What he brought to Belleville was immense experience as a player and a coach and he’s a great evaluator.

Ranjan:  In that vein, as an evaluator and coach, George is often mentioned in the same breath as our own coach here in North Bay…

Greg:  Well, you don’t really want to compare but you can relate: George Burnett and Stan Butler…lots of similarities in coaching styles and in evaluating talent.  George assembled a really good team back in 2008 when the Bulls went to the Memorial Cup and had a good showing in that tournament.

Ranjan: So what’s in store for Belleville…?

Greg:  Well Belleville has a lot of hockey markets, just like North Bay, where they support a Tier-II team in Wellington, and they have a terrific triple-A program in the Quinte Red Devils.  There’s a menu to choose from but the Bulls were at the top of that food chain.

Ranjan:  I suspect the OJHL would welcome a team at Yardman Arena in the not-too-distant future.   Turning to the flipside:  What kind of hockey market do we get with Hamilton?

Greg:  Well, I talked to a former Hamilton Dukes’ coach, and he coached against George Burnett, a former teammate of mine in Hershey when we won the Calder Cup: Jay Johnston.  He remembered there being some low times, playing in the Copps Coliseum, there’d only be a couple of thousand people scattered in that big arena.  But then he can also remember Eric Lindros coming to town and all of a sudden there were 8,000 people in that building.  Now Jay was also part of the Hamilton Fincups during the Bert Templeton era and I played against Jay and Bert against the Fincups in Hamilton…it was a thriving hockey market.  They were a tough, miserable team to play against and they put people in the seats too.  I believe it’s all about winning and putting on a good on-ice product.  It doesn’t matter what market you’re in, if you’re a winner, they’ll attend the games.

Ranjan:  I always loved that name: the Hamilton Fincups.  When I was a kid I didn’t even know what a Fincup was, but it sounded neat.  Anyway, the plan is to call them the Hamilton Bulldogs, and for the Bulldogs to continue to play next season in the East Division with Oshawa, Ottawa, Kingston and Peterborough.  Is realignment in the cards?

Greg:  That’s a good question.  As soon as I heard the news, my mind immediately went to ‘where does that put North Bay?’ but I can see for geographical and competitive reasons, that it would be best to realign.  When you have Hamilton close to Kitchener, Guelph Niagara and Mississauga: just a buck-and-a-half cab ride to those centres, well it makes little sense to travel to Ottawa.

Ranjan:  So perhaps some uncertainly about where, and with whom, North Bay ends up?

Greg:  Hopefully we’ll see North Bay stay where they are.  But, you know, it’s a League of give and take, and some owners are going to have to give and some owners are going to take.  I don’t think it’s the end of the world.  You just have to look at Sault Ste. Marie, with the most travel-intensive schedule in the League.  It comes with the territory: if you want to play junior hockey, you’d better be prepared to take a two to seven-hour bus trip.