Tretiak, arenas and business model | The Press

I’m taking advantage of the first game of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) final to talk to you about arenas.

A few years ago, I had the chance to have dinner with Vladislav Tretiak, the legendary Russian goalkeeper. When I was talking to him about an amphitheater model paid for in part by the non-traditional private sector (I will come back to this later), he told me that one of the explanations for the strength of Canadian hockey, a small country compared to Russia, was the number of arenas per capita. He had quoted Russian and Canadian statistics from memory: Russia was no match for it.

Quebec has the same type of lag compared to the rest of Canada. Alberta, for example, whose population is half ours, has 450 arenas and we have 395^⁠1. Albertans therefore have, all things considered, far more young players and far more elite players than we do (and an astonishing proportion of female players). Obviously, there are many factors that promote access to a sport, but the presence of facilities necessarily increases the pool of players… even more so when the outdoor ice surfaces are victims of climate change.

But arenas are expensive: innovative financing solutions have to be found.

At the time of the discussion with Trétiak, Gatineau was coming out of a very long soap opera to find a new home for the Gatineau Olympiques. We had said no to a multifunctional center project of 80 million (vote 10-9), a project comprising only one ice, to then innovate with a unique solution in Quebec, a solution which the Government of Quebec should take inspiration from.

There she is.

Inaugurated in 2021, this infrastructure includes three community rinks and an amphitheater for the Olympics, an amphitheater capable of accommodating up to 5,000 spectators. The whole thing cost 100 million, of which a third^⁠2 was paid by a recognized non-profit social economy enterprise: Vision Multisports Outaouais (VMSO).

Such a contribution from the private sector (36 million out of 100 million) is unheard of in the major junior in Quebec. For once, we were moving away from the model where the risks are in the public sector and the profits are privatized.

Note: a social economy enterprise is not a traditional private enterprise, there are no shareholders, all surpluses are reinvested in the organization’s mission (promoting access to the practice of sport). But VMSO remains a company: it does not receive an operating subsidy and it must cover its costs, otherwise it is bankrupt.

That’s not all. VMSO also manages the entire infrastructure. To make operations profitable, the organization can undertake commercial activities often forbidden to cities.

The NPO rents its ice cream and all of its spaces to whoever it wants. The amphitheater can also be transformed into a performance hall. Moreover, the Olympiques become tenants of VMSO and not of the City. This detail is not trivial. The occasional blackmailing of cities by junior hockey teams is fairly well documented (the Olympics were no exception). Sometimes, to have advantages, they outright threaten to leave. In this model, the Olympiques must now go to VMSO. Negotiations therefore take place between two private companies, which is a significant gain for the City and taxpayers.

The management model is based on the signing of a 45-year emphyteutic lease. VMSO is required to invest annually in a life cycle reserve so that the building will be in good condition when it is handed over to the City.

The municipal contribution consists of renting hours of ice to maintain essentially the same municipal offer as before. It is this rental guarantee that gives VMSO financial solidity.

The City therefore withdraws completely from the management of the infrastructure itself and does not manage the supply of entertainment, nor the adult leagues, nor the Olympics, etc. We had calculated that the City would save at least $33 million over 45 years.

This model, the social economy, is one of the means of facilitating catch-up in terms of municipal, cultural or sports facilities. The government should encourage it. But there is another. NHL teams are billionaires^⁠3. Their wealth depends in particular on the ability of cities to get children skating. Why don’t teams contribute to the financing of arenas? I’m asking the question.

One last tip. If a city accepts that the possibility of monetizing the name of a sports amphitheater is part of the financial framework of the manager of the building, it should set conditions, for example, that the name be French and that it not refer to junk food. We didn’t and the building is now called Center Slush Puppie instead of, for example, Center André-Beaudoin, Gatineau businessman, father of Slush Puppie Canada. This one, I will regret for a long time.

For the rest, I hope that the model will be a school. Everyone will win.

2. VMSO: $16.5 million investment and $20 million loan from Investissement Québec (36% of total costs); Quebec government: $26.5 million; City of Gatineau: $37.9 million