By Josh Hall | @Vancan19

team entering playoffs as top seed

Rumblings suggest ownership is trying to relocate AJHL’s Whitecourt Wolverines

Mar 5, 2024 | 4:59 PM

An attempt is possibly in the works to relocate the AJHL’s Whitecourt Wolverines to the town of Devon, rdnewsNOW and XM105 have learned.

For context, Devon is southwest of Edmonton and has a population around 7,000, while Whitecourt is northwest of Edmonton and has a population just under 10,000.

Charla Flett, spokesperson for the Alberta Junior Hockey League, says the league can neither confirm nor deny whether a formal submission has been made by current owners Craig Kibblewhite and Jason Fischer, who were announced as the team’s new owners in 2021. She says board policy prevents such details from being shared at this time.

Any submission to relocate a team must be made to the league by March 15, Flett explains. The league then has 30 days to vet the submission.

We reached out to both Kibblewhite and Fischer, as well as ownership partner Kelly Keylor with several questions, but none of them have returned our calls or replied to emails.

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However, we did speak with former owner Brent Stark, who sold the team in 2021 after nine years in the AJHL. Stark operated the Wolverines as a Jr. B team for five years and then purchased the Jr. A team in St. Albert so that Whitecourt could join the AJHL in 2012.

Stark has a role in any new attempt to relocate or sell because of a five-year Right of First Refusal clause he ensured was included in the terms of his sale to Kibblewhite and Fischer, which gives him the the power to stop it from happening. He also gets first dibs at buying the team back if it goes up for sale — at the price he sold it for.

A clause from the sale contract of the Whitecourt Wolverines in 2021 which gives previous owner Brent Stark the ability to veto any relocation attempt for five years post-sale. (Supplied)

“I was approached by the team’s current ownership] about four weeks ago with a request to waive my right of first refusal for possible movement of the team out of Whitecourt,” Stark reveals.

Stark promptly informed both current ownership and the league in early February that he’d be invoking his right of first refusal. He hasn’t heard from either party since, nor did he expect to, he admits.

“[The fact this is out there] comes down to ownership telling everyone they’re moving. I heard it through channels that aren’t even hockey-related. If you do this all privately that’d be better than doing it the way they have, which unfortunately is going to p**s a lot of people off,” says Stark.

“The fans are one, sponsors are another, plus it puts billet families in an awkward position. Those people open their doors for the kids. So what do you have after that when you burn those bridges?”

Stark recalls the loan agreement he made with the Town to finance a new dressing room, responsibility for which transferred to new ownership upon sale.

“There’s still an obligation to pay that back,” he says.

Stark also shares he caught wind of an arena site visit in Devon which purportedly occurred last week, though as with other questions we posed, current ownership has not confirmed or denied that.

Stark has a critical message for fans of the Wolverines.

“I want people to know that it would be counter-productive to not show up to games,” he says, referring to the looming playoffs, which Whitecourt enters as the top seed.

“Do the opposite. Go fill that barn and cheer on the kids because they’re busting their ass to bring another banner to Whitecourt. Put on your Wolverines jackets and jerseys, cheer them on, and send a message to the league that Whitecourt is a place to be for junior hockey.”

According to the AJHL, Whitecourt is averaging 537 fans a night, the fourth lowest of the league’s 11 teams, and below the league average of 695.

Rumblings of what’s going on with the club have indeed made their way into the public sphere, as evidenced by ‘Sell the team’ signs at a game last week.

(Contributed)

In Stark’s opinion, Kibblewhite and crew should be looking to sell the Wolverines, and applying for an expansion team in Devon instead. The timing is even more unfortunate, he says, given the recent defection of five AJHL teams to the BCHL.

“Our 11 teams are united and committed to moving toward the playoffs, crowning a league champion, and then moving onto nationals amid what’s been a challenging season,” adds the league’s Flett.

Flett confirms the Wolverines are in good standing as far as the playoffs and next season are concerned, adding that there’s nothing new going on with the BCHL as it relates to the Wolverines.

Whitecourt, as well as Lloydminster, Calgary, Bonnyville and Drumheller, currently await first round opponents as play-in series are played this week between Drayton Valley and Camrose, Fort McMurray and Canmore, and Olds and Grande Prairie.

This week, the Wolverines’ Travis Verbeek was selected as the AJHL Player of the Month, scoring 17 points, including three game-winners, in seven games. As well, the Wolverines captured the regular season title (34-18-4-1) and the top team goaltenders award (Ben Charette, Lukas Renaud and Nicholas Avakyan). Charette is also up for MVP and top goaltender, while Joey Melo is up for Rookie of the Year, and Dylan Leslie is nominated for Most Dedicated Player. Shawn Martin is also a finalist for Coach of the Year.

If Wolverines ownership gets back to us, we will update readers at rdnewsNOW.com and xm105fm.com.

READ MORE

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