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“That’s solved. Through the generosity of the parents’ group and others, we raised about $100,000 in a few days. It was a tough way to do it. Part of me regrets doing it that way, but we basically had no choice.”

While the team started the season with a surplus of funds, it quickly ran through them after expensive road trips, a lack of sponsorships and a reshuffling of casino programs left them high and dry.

“We have depended in past years on sponsorship, on the ability to use the provincial program of community casinos and other fundraising sources to help us out on the revenue side,” he said.

“The response we are getting is that ‘times are tight, we’re very careful with where we are aiming our sponsorships,’ and so you get a group that may have had sports a little lower on their list and now it’s off the board. I look at other not-for-profits, and they’re having a tough time, too. The major sponsors are just not there anymore.”

Photo by (Zach Laing/Postmedia Network)

Sitting near the bottom of the 16-team league in the standings and in attendance numbers, the Canucks have struggled.

Andrew said the team, which rents ice at the Max Bell Centre, averages attendance in the low hundreds while the league average is around 500 to 600. In contrast, some teams fill their arenas with a thousand fans.

Attendance is a big source of revenue, but the Canucks face heavy hockey competition in Calgary.

Not only are there professional hockey teams in the Calgary Flames and Calgary Inferno to compete with, but the Canucks also go up against two university hockey teams, high-level triple-A hockey teams and another Junior A team, the Calgary Mustangs. “We’ve got a lot of competition for the entertainment dollar in Calgary,” Andrew said.