When the GMHL West began, Derek Prue was listed as expansion director. He was also listed as an executive director with a few of these expansion organizations.
How this expansion happens is really quite interesting. Prue does some research and finds facilities in small communities that need to sell ice time in order to keep the doors open or to keep from losing too much money. Many of these locations are former homes of prior junior teams that failed, or locations that have been turned down for junior team franchises from respectable leagues.
In short, he looks for a victim. How he gets the victim to fall for the GMHL West scam is quite creative.
It starts with a “marketing package” that states that the town, city or arena has been “approved” as an expansion location for the GMHL West. The funny part is that having seen one of these so-called approval notice marketing packages, the people that actually accept them as a real document have to be idiots.
The “approval” document is mismatched and stolen information from other leagues, with pages that are not even numbered correctly. A business marketing student as a freshman in High School could put together a better and more convincing piece of work.
Who exactly does the “approval” of any location? Is there a board of directors? Hockey experts? Site plan inspections? Demographic profiles? Corporate sponsorship profiles?
It looks like the approvals come directly from Derek Prue and no one else. It looks like Derek Prue just makes all of this up out of thin air and tries to convince people to just believe in him and the “approval”.
Once a city or location is sucked in, Prue then looks for some sucker to buy the franchise. Usually that is a local businessman, or he will put a family member, ex wife or girlfriend as the owner.
In comes former Prue girlfriend Lauren Barr. Ms. Barr was sucked in by the manipulation of Prue and not only was on the hook for one team in Slave Lake but got sucked into two expansion teams. Someone really drank the Prue KoolAide. But Prue was counting on just that.
Ms. Barr covered massive debts for clubs. Lent Prue money, paid bills that were not her responsibility and then in the end was left holding the bag as Prue proved to not only be deceitful in business but more so in his personal life.
Two expansion teams Ms. Barr was trying to save have since been given back to the franchise expert Prue. Those same two franchises now have unpaid ice bills and are on hiatus until January. This is fiscal and team management 101 course on how to fail. Professor Prue is offering this course for distance learning for all to just watch online as the GMHL West disaster continues.
Prue now owns though family and friends, parts of or all of seven of the ten GMHL West teams. How is it that someone in bankruptcy can afford to own or operate seven junior hockey teams? How can someone in bankruptcy own or control this many teams without the bankruptcy court knowing? Where is the money coming from to finance all of these operations?
We will answer many of these questions in part IV.
