By Frank Scarcello
The revitalization of university hockey in Thunder Bay may very well be the catalyst for future development of a new arena for the city, says the president of Lakehead University.
With the help of local investors it has only taken one year for the Lakehead University men’s hockey program to become the envy of collegiate hockey in Canada.
A successful hockey program at the university will help in the goal of building a new multiplex arena facility in the city, says Fred Gilbert, Lakehead’s president. And he thinks with the help of private investors it could be achieved within five years.
“Somewhere in the city, and ideally on university land, there will be a multiplex facility built. We think the city has a need for a venue, that will hold five to six thousand people, not just for sports event;, we think a fine location would be on university property,” Gilbert says.
Prior to last year, university hockey was absent from the local sports scene for 18 years. In 1998 Gilbert arrived to fill the position of Lakehead University president, and one of his visions was to bring hockey back to the school.
“As a northern university in one of the best hockey cities in North America it didn’t make sense that we didn’t have hockey,” says Gilbert, “Hockey is one of the key connectors with the community because it’s something that brings people together from all walks of life. It’s a real connecting point for an institution that can appear to be aloof from the community.”
The next step in the revival of university hockey in Thunder Bay came in 1999 with the hiring of Tom Warden as athletic director. Warden played university hockey with the University of Toronto and came to Thunder Bay in 1992 to play minor-professional hockey. He was very familiar with the hockey landscape in the community.
Knowing there would be no funding available from the university, Warden studied the business model used to privately finance a football program at Laval University in Quebec City. He approached Jim Johnson, a local lawyer and well-known hockey dad, who has two sons playing in the National Hockey League, who became the lead investor and helped gather 25 investors who each invested $3,500 in seed money to become owners of the Lakehead University hockey team.
“We recognize the importance that Lakehead University has in the community,” Johnson says. “We want to promote L.U. and promote the city of Thunder Bay. We have the only privately owned university hockey team in Canada. We have done something no one else has been able to achieve and the city is achieving some self-esteem.”
In its first year the team had a winning record and went deep into the playoffs knocking off the defending national champions to a repeat win. But more importantly, notes Johnson, most of the home games were sell-outs, which had never happened in Canadian university hockey before. Johnson describes the first year success of the team as being “beyond our wildest expectations.”
