Blades owner must like living on edge

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/02/2008 (6689 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BEAUSEJOUR — You’ve heard the joke about the farmer who wins a lottery and announces he’ll invest it in farming until it’s all gone?

Now hear the revised version. A farmer shares a lottery win and invests it in his farm AND a money-losing junior hockey franchise — just to be doubly sure there’ll be nothing left.

Mel Sonnenberg hopes not, but wife Marianna wonders if the joke isn’t far off. The 52-year-old Stonewall farmer recently purchased the Sagkeeng Blades of the Manitoba Junior Hockey League and moved them to Beausejour as the Beausejour Blades.

It’s quite a gamble. How bad were the Sagkeeng Blades when owned by Assembly of First Nations National Chief Phil Fontaine? They would get home crowds as small as 20 people, mostly family who drove out to the reserve to see their kids play, and the team still got booed.

At least now the Blades are almost guaranteed a spot on the front pages of local newspapers when they win.

But that doesn’t happen too often. They have won only six times going into last week, and have just 16 points in the standings when points from overtime losses and shoot-out losses are added. Next in their division is the Winkler Flyers with 32 wins and 70 points.

If Sonnenberg thought he’d be living the dream as owner of a hockey franchise, it’s starting to look more like a nightmare from the outside.

Sonnenberg is a sole owner in a league where franchises are either owned by a consortium of investors, or the community like the Dauphin Kings and Portage Terriers, or by a First Nation like the Waywayseecappo Wolverines and Swan Valley Stampeders.

And he’s in the smallest market. Beausejour has just 2,800 residents, and another 4,000 or so in the surrounding RM of Brokenhead. That’s about on par with the Neepawa Natives. Compare that to franchises like Portage la Prairie, Selkirk and Dauphin, which all have urban population bases in the 10,000 range.

But owning the Blades is less about a dream to an owner and more about Sonnenberg’s way of trying to do something positive for the game. “You’re seeing if you can give back something,” he said.

His sister, Darlene, won a $12-million Lotto 6/49 back in 2000. Single with no children, she told the Free Press at the time she planned to share it with family members, which obviously included Mel.

Last season, Mel and Marianna’s son, Jeff, played for the Sagkeeng Blades. The parents went out to every game and started forwarding money for things like sticks — it now costs $20,000 a year for composite sticks for a typical MJHL franchise — just to keep the team afloat.

Owner Fontaine was too busy to spend much time around the franchise but one night when he was at a game, Fontaine suggested Mel might as well buy the team already. “To get your money back, I just about had to buy it,” Sonnenberg said.

The Sagkeeng Blades franchise was more than $100,000 in debt. Sonnenberg won’t say exactly what he paid but allowed that $250,000 isn’t far off. In addition, operating costs for an MJHL rural franchise runs from $300,000 and $400,000 a year. The cost to billet the players costs about $80,000 alone.

Attracting players was always a problem when the team was in Sagkeeng. Many players refused to go there. That’s changed with Beausejour, little more than a half hour’s drive from Winnipeg. “Kids are excited about coming here,” said Tim Schick, a Beausejour resident who scouts for the Melville Millionaires of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League.

The market may be small but Sonnenberg couldn’t have found a better arena than the Sun Gro Centre, which opened in 2003.

It took a tremendous community effort to get the $2.75-million facility built. The town and RM of Brokenhead contributed close to $1.8 million, and community fundraising collected another $500,000. The federal government put up $250,000 and the province about $80,000. Sun Gro Horticulture, which manufactures peat moss, purchased the naming rights for $75,000.

An MJHL franchise has raised Beausejour’s profile and been a general ego boost to the community.

“It’s elevated us a community to another level. And it’s probably made us more of a regional centre for Eastern Manitoba. We get people from Lac du Bonnet, Pinawa, Oakbank, to the games,” said Bruce Schade, Beausejour recreation director.

“It builds pride in the community,” said Mayor Don Mazur, an avowed “hockey nut.” One benefit is name exposure from people hearing and reading about the Beausejour Blades in daily sports coverage. “It gives us better recognition in Manitoba, which is important to any community.”

Crowds have averaged about 300 a night, in an arena that holds 1,000. That’s not enough but everyone is confident fans will increase as the on-ice product improves.

Sonnenberg operates a 1,000-acre grain and cattle farm near Stonewall. He didn’t try to move the team to the Stonewall arena because it would have meant taking ice time away from kids, and he didn’t want a black mark against him off the start.

He hopes he can provide guidance to the young players. “It’s fun working with kids. They can’t be all bad and there aren’t too many that are all good.”

“There are a lot worse things you can do with your money, and probably a lot smarter things,” said Sonnenberg. “It all depends on what you like doing.”

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca