The owner of the Steel Kings has decided to return the team to the league, scuttling the team’s remaining games in 2022 and possibly the season.
According to Lauren Barr, who came on as full-time owner of the team after Andre Payette passed away, she has relinquished control of the Tumbler ridge Steel Kings and the Mackenzie Mountaineers.
“My purchase agreement with WPHA (The Western Provinces Hockey Association) allowed me to relinquish the teams back to the league.”
She says she has returned both teams to the league, “so that they could meet the financial obligations and ensure the teams success.”
Barr was keen to take on the teams, but found it difficult to operate due to a lack of funds and not having enough players. “The WPHA is in a better position to deliver,” says Barr.
Friday night’s game was cancelled, as are the rest of the games in December.
GMHL West Executive Director Derek Prou says this puts things in a difficult place for the BC Division. “Lauren did her best trying to get things started, but when you get somebody like Andre as a GM and coach, who passes away you know, right before the season, it leaves a big void, especially at this level. The GM and coach are responsible for pretty much anything and everything. At the end of the day, that just proved to be a hole that she just couldn’t dig out of.”
As of this writing, he says he isn’t sure what’s going to happen. “I’m in the process of assessing it,” says Prou. “I found out just last week that this is happening. It means trying to reschedule and there’s a lot of moving parts.”
The worst case, says Prou—and the most likely—is one of the two teams will have to go on hiatus until next season. And, he says, Mackenzie has managed to pull together a roster of 15. “The best case is everybody would have a recess until the new year—there’s only 10 days until the break anyway—and we’ll take the time to look at the schedule. If I had to guess it would be three teams for the balance of the footprint and maybe intermingle some games with Alberta. We will be going down the list and talking to all the stakeholders. We’ll make a decision, and then we’ll make a plan to go forward as soon as we can.
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
