‘Not handing over anything’: REAL CEO addresses Brandt Centre ice dispute

A face off around ice time at the Brandt Centre continues between Young Guns Hockey Academy and a senior men’s hockey league.

A deal struck between the Regina Exhibition Association Ltd. (REAL), which manages the centre, and Young Guns will allow the hockey academy to control ice time that is not already spoken for by the Regina Pats.

Concerns have been raised by senior men’s hockey players, who have been playing at the Brandt Centre for years, who are worried they will now get less-desirable ice times, or nothing at all.

A notice of motion was submitted by Mayor Sandra Masters and Councilor Bob Hawkins to bring the ice time dispute before city council, but the matter wasn’t dealt with at the last council meeting on Wednesday.

Roberta Engel, the Regina Exhibition Association’s acting president and CEO, spoke with the Evan Bray Show about the ice time dispute on Monday morning.

The following transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

BRAY: So, lets talk about how this, how this came to be. The ice time, the booking at the Brandt Centre, has this been in the works for a long time? Not necessarily with Young Guns Academy, but is this something that Brandt has been looking to farm out to independent companies for a while?

ENGEL: We haven’t actively been looking to rent out the Brandt Centre in the manner of which we are trying to do with Young Guns. But Young Guns has been a user group with us for two years, and Mike (Reich) has been trying to build this program gradually. But when it comes to allocating the ice at (the) Brandt Centre, one thing I did want to clarify is that Young Guns is looking to take on the prime ice time, however, we are working very closely with them because they are not going to take all that prime ice time. We want to make sure that all of the users are still getting access to some of the ice time in the Brandt Centre, and the Brandt Centre has actually allocated out, at the very beginning, to REAL and to the Pats. So REAL and the Pats take anywhere from 40 to 50 per cent of that prime time ice that is currently available, and then the balance would be allocated out to the Young Guns and the remaining user groups.

Okay so, is it correct to assume or to understand that… the remaining part of the time isn’t being taken by REAL or by the Pats, Young Guns will be handling the assigning the ice time for that?

ENGEL: Eventually, yes. Knowing the impact that this announcement has been made, REAL has stepped in and wants to make sure that the transition is smooth, and that we truly understand what each one of the user groups are needing and requiring, and then we can assist these user groups in finding other ice time that’s either in the Brandt Centre but at a different time, or maybe at the same time but at different locations throughout the city.

Was there much consultation done on this, Roberta? One of the frustrations often we hear, not just on this topic but on any topic where change is happening, people complain there wasn’t a lot of consultation. It seems as though these adult rec player and teams were caught blindsided by this decision. What was that consultation process like?

ENGEL: Great question, Evan, and you know, I think they probably could have felt they were blindsided, and I can certainly appreciate their reaction. This is a change. This is a massive change (in) direction as to how the Brandt Centre is being used. But that being said, we did collect all of the applications from the users. We’ve been doing a lot of work on really trying to understand how many users are going to be directly impacted. There are some users that aren’t going to be impacted at all by this change. And so we wanted to step back and say, ‘OK, you know what? … We need to be partners in this particular situation with everyone, and make sure that our current users, who have been longtime users, are well taken care of, as well as progressing REAL forward. This is a contract that we’re looking to enter into that is in alignment with the new mandate set by city council. It’ll increase the utilization for the Brandt Centre during prime time from 75 per cent to 100 per cent. It’ll help us set us on a path to becoming commercially viable, as they talked about, (and) increasing our partnerships, and so we believe that this is a step in the right direction. Further, you know the economic impact that we could potentially have in our city with how it could positively impact our hotels and our local businesses through the fact that Young Guns is saying, ‘Hey, in the next year or two, we’re going to start bringing more tournaments and showcases and really highlighting us as a city, as a hockey town.’

Is the board involved in these types of decisions? Or is this more of a reporting to the board, and they likely weren’t aware this operational decision was being made?

ENGEL: Yes, the board’s been provided a briefing note and a copy of the current drafted contract for their review and comment. However, typically, in the past, Evan, this would not have been (a) board-approval requirement. It would have fallen within the authority of administration to make the make the decision, so they would have been informed during the normal course of process through our regular monthly board meetings.

This has been a bubbling topic of discussion over the last week for sure, and really, I think, moved people into two camps, one that are supporting Young Guns Hockey Academy, the other that are supporting at some of the adult recreational players that were using the ice time. And part of the frustration, I think, Roberta, that we’re hearing from people is the notion that it’s a civic asset that is essentially being handed over to a private business for the scheduling purposes. Are you able to confirm is Young Guns paying a premium for the privilege of controlling the ice time, and is that part of what was attractive to entering into this kind of an agreement?

ENGEL: I’m going to just back up a little bit. Evan, we’re not handing over anything to Young Guns. We’re partnering with them to, you know, book the ice time at the Brandt Centre. It’s really no different than how we’ve partnered with FCR and the AffinityPlex, and how they’ve got access to the AffinityPlex. It’s no different than how we’ve partnered with pickleball or baseball or any other organization that has come onto our property and entered into a facility use agreement, which is really what we’re doing with Young Guns. As it as it relates to ice time rates, Young Guns will pay the market rate of $294 and they will not be able to resell it at an increased rate. It’ll be clearly indicated in the contract that if you have ice time that you want to allocate out to another user, they will still pay the same market rate of $294, which is what it is today.

You definitely have cleared up a couple of things, because one of the questions that I have seen numerous times is: Does Young Guns then get to up the rates, jack them up? You’re saying, ‘No, they will maintain them,’ but back to (me using) the words ‘handed over.’ You’re saying, ‘No, no, no. This is, this is a partnership that we’re entering into,’ but I’m but I’m just wanting to clarify. Young Guns, though, will have some decision-making power? They will decide on how ice time is allocated as a result of this agreement?

ENGEL: Yeah, and I think what REAL needs to do is work with Young Guns on what that allocation priority looks like, and so that it’s not completely left up to them, (and) that they have some guidelines and some protocols that we would’ve followed in the past, because… we want to be transparent and we want to be fair as to how this ice time is allocated, and so working with Mike and the team there, they’re working through all of those details at this point.

Roberta, just before I let you go, is this a slippery slope? You’re you’re trying to manage a business, and one that has struggled over the last little while, hence you’re in this acting president and CEO role. There’s been some fairly big transition over the last year, and you have been asked by council to work with the board to make REAL commercially viable going forward. Is this, though, a slippery slope? Does this impact if a company were to come to you for the International Trade Center and say ‘We would like to to partner with you to handle how this is being booked, and thus we can use it for our company,’ is there worry that this could go down a bit of a rabbit hole?

ENGEL: We need to embrace change. We need to embrace the fact that we may not always look like we did 100-and-some years ago, or 140-some years ago. We need to be open to ideas, and to change at REAL, we’ve got to move forward. We’ve got to become commercially viable, self sustaining. And to your point, ever since COVID, we have really been struggling with getting back on track. And we’ve often said that… we’re one major concert and one major event away from not breaking even. And maybe we need to start thinking about more reoccurring revenue, and revenue that’s always there for us as an organization, but also for our taxpayers. The more reoccurring revenue that we can build into our business plan, the more profitable we’ll be, and become more sustainable and stable as well.

So in closing, where things are at right now, after this agreement has been made, but you’ve since heard from, I’m guessing, a lot of people in the public, is it on pause? Or are we rethinking it? You mentioned that REAL as going to do some work here this fall to try and get things in a better place.

ENGEL: I wouldn’t say anything’s on pause, but we are working through all of the details and allocations with with… Young Guns, as well as our user groups. And so we’ve sent out a communication on Friday, and our team will be reaching out through reaching out to them. The allocations will come become effective October 1, so we’ve still got a little bit of time. Not a lot of time, but we do have still have a little bit of time to work through all of the details. And certainly (I) can appreciate how all all of our user groups are feeling, but if they can trust in the process and trust in the fact that we heard you and we are wanting to come to the table and work out some form of resolution to this.