IceDiggers future still up in the air

Ashley Teffer
The Multi-Purpose Arena Coalition meeting did not result in an answer to the question on everyone’s mind: What will become of the Alpena IceDiggers?

An array of concerned citizens were present to voice their opinions.

“I think the IceDiggers bring a lot to the community,” ” said Kay Sayre IceDiggers, volunteer of three years. “They play 27 games a year and bring a lot to our restaurants, hotels and community. They have helped Northern Lights Arena become financially stable.”

Carl Donkuski said he works closely with the team. He said he believes the team had poor accounting.

“It costs $300,000 to run this team efficiently,” he said. “My wife has volunteered to be the accountant next year. If this organization is run like you will not make money, but if you do things right you won’t lose money either,” said Alpena citizen.

The board said it wants the IceDiggers to stay as much as the community does.

“We are not against the IceDiggers, we value them. We would argue with anyone who would say we are trying to push them out of town. Personally I housed a player for two years,” said M-PAC President Tom VanMassenhove. “The leave or stay decision is not ours — it’s the IceDiggers’.”

In fact, the board passed a motion to send the IceDiggers a letter containing five different ideas to improve their situation and revenue.

“Where we are at is they have approached us explaining their financial performance in the past and the expected financial short fall in the coming year and they have made several requests for changes in our contract with them that would allow them to alleviate those short falls,” VanMassenhove said. “We’ve evaluated those requests and we are honoring their privacy, but we have as of today approved a letter with five different ideas that will enable them to generate new income that should significantly help their financial position. It’s the most that I think they could ever find here without hurting the financial stability of Northern Lights Arena itself.”

One of the proposed ideas hinges on the success of a tavern license, which would enable the arena to sell beer and wine to the general public. IceDigger Investor Theresa Henry believes the license could help the financial situation.

“I think it would make a big difference,” she said. “We had liquor sales the very last game we were here and it helped a lot. In the contract the team was supposed to have that all year and we didn’t. I think it can make a difference.”

According to VanMassenhove a ravern license could be acquired in the near future.

“We have letters of approval from the governmental bodies which is usually a major hurdle to get over, but we’ve had those for a couple years now so now it’s just a matter of pushing the application along and dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s,” he said.

In any case an agreement needs to be reached quickly because the team is at risk of losing players.

“We’ve been getting a lot of phone calls, the players are getting nervous. Cause everybody’s starting to sign and tryouts are coming up we have to have our tender list up by June 6. So I’m hoping we have this resolved by Friday,” Henry said.

In other business:

? The board approved Theresa Henry as the new IceDigger representative for the board.

? Request for surveillance cameras denied, therefore board will have to find other venue of support.

? The new adjusted net income for the first quarter of 2008 for the Northern Lights Area is $38,645 .

Ashley Teffer can be reached via e-mail at ateffer@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5689.