When you have communities that are desperate to sell ice, or desperate enough to believe they are positioned well to host a junior hockey team, you have an opening for disaster.
Junior hockey leagues that are successful, are successful because a lot of time, research and money go into the organization before the organization exists. Junior hockey teams, like so many in the GMHL and GMHL West, fail because they have no money to invest prior to announcing a team within a city that is desperate enough to allow the team to be announced.
The politics in Canada set the table for GMHL West and GMHL to come in and feast on many communities. The arenas are usually owned and operated by the municipality who has a fiduciary responsibility to sell ice, and a legal responsibility to not discriminate who it sells to. These arena boards almost always have zero hockey businesspeople involved in operations and have zero personal liability when teams fail. That is a recipe’ for disaster.
Derek Prue knows this formula. The GMHL has used this formula for years in Ontario, and it is not only being used in Western Canada, but it is becoming finely tuned.
Welcome Crowsnest Pass and Pincher Creek. The latest suckers in the Derek Prue, GMHL West scam.
These two locations are set to be expansion teams for the GMHL west, having already received approvals from those same board of city officials operating the arena’s I just mentioned.
There are no owners associated with either of these teams. Only the “approval” of an expansion team provided by Prue. The document that would not fool one real hockey business professional if they were to look at it.
Fortunately the good people in Houston British Columbia were saved from the financial disaster of Prue when turning down his request to place a GMHL West team in their Claude Parish Memorial Arena.
Houston BC is a city with a total of 3000 people living in it, and the population has been on decline for nearly 20 years. One sixth of the population is indigenous people and this is important to note how it fit into the Prue scheme.
Prue claims indigenous heritage. He wears indigenous and Christian symbols on his clothes to all of the meetings he attends. They are tools used in his manipulation. Intended to get city officials, many who are indigenous and/or religious to buy into what he is selling.
The GMHL West claims to be “inclusive”, which means they are supported financially by a majority of indigenous players who tribal elders and leaders pay the tuition for them to play on these teams. This is a deliberate manipulation not designed for inclusivity but for financial gain of Prue.
The patterns are all there for anyone to see. Every GMHL West location is suspiciously close to indigenous lands and every roster in the GMHL West shows a preponderance of indigenous players.
I wonder where all the indigenous team ownership groups are? I wonder why, if such an inclusive business model is in place that more indigenous coaches and support staff are not involved? I wonder how tribal elders feel about all of their money leaving their community to fuel Prue’s lifestyle?
So many people are asking these questions and more now that TJHN gets new information daily on Derek Prue. The scorched earth he leaves behind with players and ill-gotten tuition, unfulfilled promises to cities, sponsors, and employees. Unpaid bills to billets, arenas, equipment and service providers.
All of this from a person who was as of last month still in bankruptcy.
One has to imagine that people who blow the whistle on this GMHL West scam will be contacting all of the newly proposed and “approved” expansion locations. One would have to imagine that activists will contact cities to protect them from the financial disaster that will likely befall them.
This story is a long way from over.
