MOOSEJAWTODAY.COM -- A wildly successful season that ended with a Western Hockey League championship ended up almost equally as successful for the team’s bank balance, as revealed by their annual general meeting on Thursday.
The Warriors showed a profit of nearly $500,000 when all was said and done, a far cry from the substantial losses the team had seen the previous two seasons and a turn of events that was more than welcome for team president Bob Dougall.
“You saw how it went on the ice and that translated into some good results off the ice,” Dougall told the Warriors’ Marc Smith in post-meeting remarks. “The kids, it was such an awesome group, and we had so much community support from the city with fans chasing these kids in and out of town and police escorts, that kind of stuff was talked about at the league level.”
“We were able to do some great things for the building with the amount of money we paid to them, we were able to do a lot of good things for the community and the bottom line for the team was good too. It was a great year.”
The windfall couldn’t have come at a better time. The Warriors lost close to $200,000 last year and around $100,000 the year before, making the success crucial for the team’s continued viability in Moose Jaw.
“To have a year like this and having a decent bank balance, that’s really important going forward,” Dougall said.
Of course, the success is all because of the fans and their support of the team in their playoff run. From the second-round win over Swift Current through the title win over Portland, the Warriors saw eight consecutive complete sellouts in the Moose Jaw Events Centre, throwing hundreds of thousands of dollars into their bank balance.
That success has already spilled over into the new season, with an additional 300 season tickets having been sold compared to last year.
“So that’s going to help,” Dougall said. “Our corporate sponsors are back on board, so it’s really important that continues for a small team like we are.”
With all the money that came in, the Warriors were also able to give a lot back. In addition to recently signing a five-year lease with the City of Moose Jaw for use of the Moose Jaw Events Centre, Dougall estimated that between rent, concession revenue and ticket fees, over a million dollars had been given back to the building and city over the last year.
The goal now will be to try and get close to those numbers once again during the 2024-25 campaign.
“I guess if you look at the year we had last year, if we kept doing that it wouldn’t be bad, but you don’t always have those kinds of years,” Dougall said. “That’s going to be tough for the team to keep up, junior hockey is cyclical, so there are going to be years where we’re not as good and we don’t put as many people in the stands, but it’s all about winning… It’s just important we keep getting people out and keep getting the support that we have.”
The Warriors home opener and championship banner raising is set for Saturday night when the Prince Albert Raiders are in town. Puck drop is 7 p.m., but be sure to be at the rink early to take in all the festivities.
