By Nathan Kanter

BMHA says no to commemorative jersey crest in members-only meeting

Apr 20, 2018 | 3:00 PM

Prior to their annual general meeting on Tuesday night, the Battlefords Minor Hockey Association explained to their members their decision on whether or not to allow a commemorative crest in honour of Ash Lascelle, who died by suicide earlier this year.

The AGM was closed to the media and the decision has not been made public, but BattlefordsNOW has been told the BMHA board will not allow the patches on the jerseys.

Vice-president of the BMHA Kyle Kellgren was voted in as president Tuesday and said the organization’s reasons for not allowing the patches are between the board and its members only.

“We gave our statement [Tuesday] night to the members and that’s who we work for, is the members of our association,” Kellgren said on Wednesday morning. “Every member was invited to come to that meeting. I think there was 70-80 people there last night, which is a small portion of our membership. If any members want to hear our side of it, we are more than welcome to talk to them about it.”

Parent Karla Snyder, whose son Konnor helped design the stickers that were used to create the crest, said it’s unfortunate the board made the decision not to allow the crest.

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“A little disappointed. We tried, I guess, right? Konnor has tried. It’s done now… They’re set in their mind that they’re not getting put on,” she said on Friday. “The kids can wear them on their hockey pants, which I guess doesn’t really make a difference if it’s the jersey or the hockey pants. They’re saying some kids don’t want them on their jerseys and that all jerseys need to be uniform. We can’t have some wearing it and some not.”

Snyder also said there was ‘lots of hostility’ during the discussion about the patch, which took place before the actual AGM began.

When asked why the meeting was closed to the media, Kellgren said it was because the board felt part of the conversation wasn’t even going to be about the AGM.

“We didn’t feel it was necessary for that to be reported on,” he said. “We just feel as a board that it’s for our members [only] and the decision [on the patch] was based on our members best interest.”

Some questioned the board’s decision to not allow media in.

Kelly Page, a coach for the the midget Barons, said before the meeting began that there’s no reason it should be closed off from the media.

“They just want to have that control and I don’t believe in that,” Page said. “The crests are important to the community… You look at last year, we only had 10 parents or so and you look [around] and it’s full in there.”

Snyder also didn’t understand why media weren’t allowed in.

“If they knew stuff was going to get said that they didn’t want heard, or what, I’m not too sure,” Snyder said. “To me, it’s a community meeting, so anybody should be allowed in.”

Financials postive for BMHA

With Kellgren moving from vice-president to president, outgoing president Jenni Wutunee is now past president, and will remain on the board. Chris Browne is the new vice-president, who was the director of the atom division last year.

Kellgren said the BMHA is doing “very well,” financially, but said they don’t have up to date numbers.

“We don’t have the current financials because we are just coming near the end of it, so we don’t know exactly where we sit,” he said. “We’ll know more as we prepare a new budget and finish off with our recent budget.”

The organization has not yet talked about whether or not fees for 2018-19 will increase.

“As we look at the current situation with the budget, there is no discussion to increase fees,” Kellgren said. “Anybody from the general public that wants to know, they can contact BMHA office and we’re more than welcome to show our financials.”

Kellgren added that the success of some of the BMHA teams this year has made 2017-18 one of the best years the organization has had.

“We had one championship in the lower division, we had a bantam provincial championship, which hasn’t happened since 2009-10, our midget team got to the finals of the STEP league, another bantam team got to the finals of the STEP league, another bantam got to the semis,” he said. “So by far, with what we’ve done for the development of hockey for the association, we feel we are moving in the right direction. We’re developing our hockey players and making our teams better and better.”

Minutes from the AGM are not posted publicly until they have been approved by the membership at the next AGM.

nathan.kanter@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @NathanKanter11