The Similkameen News Leader
Sports Page - January 19, 2010
POSSE SEASON FAR FROM OVER
With only a handful of games remaining in the regular season, the Princeton Posse Junior Hockey Club is planning a number of events to keep the team front and centre going into playoffs.
"We're not even talking about the first round," says Posse Marketing Director George Elliott.
"We're talking about the second round and beyond and are looking at possible scenarios that we can address before we have to."
Elliott is talking about subtle changes to the game night format.
"We're exploring the addition of a refreshment garden in the Arena Mezzanine for a couple of the remaining regular season home games to gauge whether or not we want to add that to all playoff games or not."
There has been interest from fans requesting alcohol sales to the offerings at the arena as well as additional activities.
"We're looking at organizing the year end Awards Banquet, fundraising activities in the off-season which could include a Golf Tournament or a celebrity event of some kind along with fine tuning some of the things we've learned during this year to make things a little smoother for next season."
Elliott has been in contact with all other teams in the league to find out fee structures being used elsewhere on such items as billet fees, player fees and payment options offered to player parents.
"One of the biggest jobs happens to be collecting the monthly billet fees. We will spend part of the off-season developing a policy manual which will spell out in great detail what is expected of player parents on such matters once their boy is signed to play for the Posse," Elliott explains.
"These are things that need to be solved at camp, long before the regular season starts."
There were a lot of new faces on the Posse executive this season and they learned a lot about what it takes to run the business of junior hockey in Princeton.
"A lot of lessons have been learned and we will be carrying that knowledge into next season," Elliott says.
"We all knew this season was going to be a real eye-opener for us and we've tried hard to not let the curve balls and monkey wrenches throw us as we try to make it easier for next season. The added bonus is we happen to have a team this season that is going to go deep into the playoffs."
Elliott is quick to give credit to others.
"The business of running the actual team the hockey part of it we've left to the coaching staff and they have done a tremendous job. The running of the business has been left to the executive, which has also done a good job. It's a great bunch of volunteers with the same goals in mind and that makes it a lot easier for all of us to deal with."
Elliott says that although the fan base appears to be down slightly from last year it's not serious.
"The economic conditions for the past year affected a lot of things so live entertainment just happened to be one of them. Next season will be different."
The Posse have spent most of January on the road and will play their last home game this month on the 29th against Kamloops. The schedule next month features four home games and two away games. The regular season ends for Princeton in Chase on February 13th with playoffs to follow.
