BCHL could lose next season, teams could fold in worst-case scenario
Posted April 15, 2020 9:46 pm.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) -The Commissioner of the BCHL is laying out a worst-case scenario for the league in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Chris Hebb says the league was forced to cancel its season last month because of the virus, and that means some teams have already lost plenty of money.
‘It’s a league that is not a rich league, and lives kind of hand to mouth,” says Hebb. ‘Losing playoff revenue, plus the spring camps and summer camps that many of the teams ran was a devastating blow.”
He says right now he’s ‘crossing his fingers’ that next season will go ahead, but there is the chance it won’t.
He says teams would have the option of taking a hiatus in that case but predicts if that were to happen, some teams just wouldn’t survive.
“In some cases, I think some teams could in danger of folding altogether, we haven’t had any indication of that yet, but it would not be out of the realm of possibility,” says Hebb.
He says the plan now is to appeal to government officials for financial aid, with some help from municipal governments.
‘We have asked our BC teams to solicit letters from their mayors, just to give the politicians at the senior levels of government an understanding of just how important these teams our to the communities’, says Hebb.
Hebb says he feels terrible for the league owners, for the players and communities that saw the season come to an abrupt end.
