GTHL's $520 fee plan draws mixed reviews

GTHL's $520 fee plan draws mixed reviews
February 28, 2009
Lois Kalchman
Special to the Star

The reaction ranged from outrage to acceptance as parents and club executives absorbed the news of the Greater Toronto Hockey League's new annual $520 "player registration fee" that replaces gate fees.

The fee, announced Thursday, requires parents to pay a maximum $520 for each child on rep teams. That would replace the $5 per game that parents, spectators and some 8,000 players are now charged to enter the rinks.


The GTHL says the new fee, to come into effect next season, would help erase a $400,000 deficit.

"It will affect us big-time," said Carmen Cummings, president of the Scarborough Young Bruins AA.

"We have an under-21 AAA team where most of the players drive themselves to the rink," she said. "They pay their $5 and play. These kids go to school, work and most pay their own way with few parents as spectators. Now these same kids will have to come up with $520 at the beginning of the season which could easily be impossible. We'll lose them."

Cummings also expressed concern that the change would mean the GTHL wouldn't need to supply security for games.

"You could now have a hundred high school kids coming to watch rival clubs and who knows what will happen," she said.

Dan Fitzgerald will have three sons playing GTHL hockey next year.

"It's pretty steep," he said. "I will have to re-evaluate. It's hard economic times. People enjoy organized hockey but will have to balance out the needs. I went with my son last year and that was $360, so this will be a significant increase."

Mike James, president of the Mississauga Senators, has mixed feelings.

"It is the up-front sticker price that is scaring everyone," James said. "I feel for the families that have three or four children, but then there were also families who had only one parent go to a game because they couldn't afford it. Now they will all be able to go to the game without paying and to any other game at no cost."

Mississauga Jets general manager Val Neal is extremely upset.

"It's the wrong time for this," Neal said. "They should look inside first and then when they show us that they have saved ... Now they say we should cut back on our budgets."