The Kelowna Rockets won the Memorial Cup when they hosted it in 2004 and again in 2015 on the road. They hope to have another shot at winning at home in 2026.

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In the business world, meeting deadlines is vitally important.

Failing to meet a Jan. 15 deadline to present plans to the City of Kelowna for needed improvements to the Prospera Place arena means its builder and long-term operator, GSL Group, is almost certainly on the way out.

On Jan. 25, the City of Kelowna announced it was looking for a new operator when GSL’s lease runs out in 2029.

GSL quickly put out a press release implying the city was jumping the gun because GSL told them in December that a proposal was coming.

“I went to Vancouver and had meeting with GSL early last a spring,” Kelowna Mayor Dyas told iNFOnews.ca. “We then followed up with a detailed communication that we’re looking at trying to advance these discussions for a number of reasons – upgrades for events coming up and things along those lines – and I had established a date that we would like the information back – by Jan. 15, 2024.

“There was a fairly big window of time there in order for them to do that and the communication we received in December was that we will be receiving some information in the upcoming months.

"We recognized the importance of this facility to the community and the importance of events like, potentially, the Memorial Cup in 2026. We needed to just take a look at it and say: ‘Are we providing the best possible consideration for sports and entertainment and protecting that asset for our community?’

"A decision was made that we think we should see what other expressions of interest are out there.”

The city is going to put out a request for proposals in about two months, Dyas said. It will outline what improvements will be needed going forward to the 25-year-old building that GSL built in a public-private partnership with the city and has operated since it opened in 1999.

“At this point of time, it’s great that we’ve received the communication but I’m not even certain that it’s in line with what specs will be in our request for proposals,” Dyas said.

In other words, GSL will have to submit an expression of interest like anyone else responding to the request for proposals if it wants to stay in the game.

A lack of communication seems to be standard with GSL and its CEO Graham Lee who, until the city pulled the plug, has not responded to numerous interview requests from iNFOnews.ca over many months.

Lee held a media “scrum” yesterday, Jan. 31, to speak about his proposal to the city that says he can help upgrade the building in time for the 2026 Memorial Cup.

READ MORE: Prospera Place operator points the finger over loss of Rockets Memorial Cup bid

“He’s never come to us with any of this,” Bruce Hamilton, president and general manager of the WHL's Kelowna Rockets, who are the main tenant in the building, told iNFOnews.ca.

He couldn’t comment on whether the GSL proposal will meet league standards because no one had sent him a copy.

“They don’t communicate with us on any of this stuff,” Hamilton said, noting that he’s only had one or two brief conversations with Lee in the past couple of years.

“The city is the one that came to me,” Hamilton said. “They want a chance at having the Memorial Cup back here. It’s an event that brings a lot of prestige and money to the city.”

The Memorial Cup is the national junior hockey championship for Canada. It was hosted and won by the Rockets in 2004.

In 2020, the Rockets were selected to host again but the tournament was cancelled due to COVID.

The next time the Memorial Cup was hosted in Western Canada in 2023, Kelowna did not apply because Prospera Place did not meet league standards.

READ MORE: Why couldn't the Kelowna Rockets host this year’s Memorial Cup? It's a secret

During the media scrum, Lee said he had committed to most of the improvements needed to make the 2023 bid but the Rockets chose not to submit one.

Hamilton chuckled about that.

“He fails to mention that we were left with the costs of the extra dressing rooms,” he said, pointing out they would have been $100,000 each for three dressing rooms. That was just one of the costs the team was facing.

“You’ve got to remember, we get nothing from an event like that because all the ticket revenue goes to the Memorial Cup Society,” Lee said during the media scrum. “All sponsorship goes to the Memorial Cup Society or the Canadian Hockey League. Our involvement, at that time, would almost have been a gift.”

That elicited another chuckle from Hamilton.

“He gets all the concessions out of having 6,000 people a day in the building and the parking,” Hamilton said. “He has a hard time remembering that.”

Another point of contention is the lease arrangement between GSL and the Rockets. Hamilton pointed out that all the WHL leases are available for viewing by both parties.

“We tried to have a conversation about opening the lease up to make it somewhat reasonable, in my mind,” Hamilton said. “I get: ‘You signed a 30-year lease. You’re living with it.’”

Now, as part of his proposal to the city, Lee is saying he wants to negotiate a lease that’s more favourable to the Rockets.

“He said that?” Hamilton asked. “I’ve heard that before but I’ve never seen it.”

At issue in all of this is the 2026 Memorial Cup that Hamilton hopes to host. It’s something that can bring in the neighbourhood of $20 million worth of economic benefits to the host city.

“I’ve already met at length with the city and, I think, the city is fully committed to getting involved with us and helping us,” Hamilton said. “I’m not going to submit our name just to get told we can’t meet the standards. I need somebody, whether it’s the city or GSL, to sign off that everything that has to be done will be done.”

Dyas confirmed that those discussions are being held and that the city, possibly with assistance from Tourism Kelowna, might put money into necessary building upgrades even before a new operator is selected.

“I’m not exactly certain on the specifics of it but at the end of the day it is our building so, if there are advancements that are brought into that building and there is potentially a new partner that is brought in, then we would be looking at establishing some kind of a recovery model on those cost upgrades going into the future,” Dyas said.

Even without a Memorial Cup bid, the future of the Rockets in Prospera Place is a bit shaky without upgrades to things like the scoreboard and seating.

“There is a security agreement that there would be a team here for 30 years but if the building doesn’t meet the standards, there are issues there,” Hamilton said. “The league has, in our constitution, standards that you have to meet or you don’t play there. Right now, it doesn’t meet the standards.”

He noted that the seating hasn’t been changed in Prospera’s 25-year life and the original score clock is still in place. The clock in Sandman Place in Kamloops, which hosted the 2023 Memorial Cup, is on its third upgrade, Hamilton said.

The City of Kamloops, which owns Sandman Place, spent $3 million in upgrades in the three years leading up to its bid and another $1 million to meet Memorial Cup standards.

READ MORE: A tale of two arenas: Why Kamloops got the Memorial Cup and Kelowna didn’t

Things have gotten to the point where, when snow accumulated on the roof in January, it triggered leaks into some of the suites and the training room.

“That’s a regular occurrence when snow sits on the roof,” Hamilton said.

That’s one of the reasons Dyas is pushing for changes.

“We want to make certain we have the best possible sports and entertainment options available to the city,” he said. “At the same time, we are protecting that asset and making sure that it receives all of the maintenance and proper upgrades that it needs.

"We are going to continue going through the request for proposals process and look at what other companies would be interested."

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