Save for a few formalities, the future of Salmon Arm’s Junior A hockey franchise has been secured.
The Salmon Arm SilverBacks announced Friday that owners Randy and Terry Williams have agreed to a deal in principle to sell the club to a new ownership group led by current general manager Troy Mick.
“It’s huge,” said a pleased Mick last week. “Finally. It’s been a lot of work to try to get it... Now I am happy to say we can officially say we have a deal.”
The transfer of the franchise is scheduled to take place today, but members of the new group won’t be named or introduced until early next week, following the SilverBacks Spring Camp now underway at the Shaw Centre.
With the new ownership group comes the loss of head coach Scott Robinson and the reinstatement of Mick behind he bench. Mick said he’s disappointed to see his friend go.
“When he came in September he knew because we told him right off the hopper… the intent was the team would be sold during the course of the year... Obviously he protected himself in his contract very well – my relationship with him, I’m disappointed, but he’s going to be leaving here with his head held up high, because he did a phenomenal job for us... Obviously he’s very disappointed. He’s also a professional and a very good friend, and understood that (the intent was to sell) when he came in September. There was no hiding anything...”
Mick said there were ‘what if’s’ concerning his own job depending on who bought the franchise.
Mick said budgets are always the challenge for Junior A teams and “if you’re breaking even, it’s probably a good year.”
Although Mick stopped coaching the team because of the heavy load he was carrying as GM and minority owner, he said the people involved in the new venture will give him the resources he needs.
“Knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t have been the head coach when they hired me in the first place,” he says of his hiring prior to the start of last season.
Mick says Randy and Terry Williams had two main goals in finding new owners – that the franchise would stay in Salmon Arm and the group would care about hockey.
“They care very much about hockey,” said Mick of the new owners. “Junior hockey is not going out of Salmon Arm – 100 per cent.”
He said he now has a challenge for residents.
“Let’s show this ownership group that Salmon Arm can support Junior A hockey and support it the way it used to be.”