Culture Change

Culture Change
Just as a refresher to those of you who did not read my blog from a couple few ago, I did my community blog on the Mount Royal Cougars Hockey community, as I am one of the key staff members on game days.
I know we are supposed to discuss the main priorities but we decided there is one pressing issue that needs to be addressed as soon as possible and that is fan support. I realise, that in a city of just under a million people, who has three major league sports team (the Flames, Stampeders and Roughnecks) and a Major Junior Hockey team (Hitmen), it can be difficult to entice fans to support college hockey. (Notice how I said difficult and not impossible). As a whole, our staff members believe that there are significant areas that could improve that would bring in more fan support.

Some of these ideas include: sponsorship, advertizing and creating atmosphere. Sponsorship is easy enough to justify. The more sponsors, the more money you bring in. Ticket sales for college hockey are not enough to cover the costs of running the event, and I don’t think that even a spike in attendance would be able to support the costs so turning to sponsorship makes sense. In Grande Prairie, the Junior ‘A’ team has over 1 million dollars in advertizing within their rink and that is solely banners, boards and ice logos. I’m not saying we go that far, because there are some ethical implications since we are a educational institution et cetera et cetera but we live in Corporate Calgary, this place is a sponsorship gold mine of sorts. Game sponsors instead of the regular old sponsorship could bring in fans from companies around Calgary, which would create excitement for Cougar Hockey outside of the existing community.
 Advertizing relates less to students and more to the surrounding community as they are an untapped resource at this point. We believe that sending out e-mail through MRU could help bring students to games because a lot of people forget that Hockey is not on campus. We also think that compared to the major sports teams in town, we are a bargain for the quality of hockey you are able to watch. Make this a family atmosphere and people will come.   

Creating atmosphere is a little harder to do but it ties into the sponsorship idea. If a sponsor decides to associate their name with a game, than intermissions could be used to further promote their company. One of the most creative ways I’ve seen this used is a Marine Sport Company was the game sponsor and they brought 4 big tubes out onto the ice and made four crowd members play musical chairs with the tubes! It was enjoyable to watch and to participate in! Perfect, clean, family fun. The thing about these ideas is that the people who are impacted most, are the game day staff and we are the ones trying to drive the change.  We are willing to commit to extra work to make this community an even bigger success.

Who needs to be involved in this discussion, well, to tell you the truth, I think we need to go even further than our direct boss (Kimmo) and move towards the head of Athletics and that entire department. We need a culture change so that we can development this stagnant community. Current sponsors should be stakeholders as well as students,  members of the community, Booster club members and even alumni.
The process, to me at least, seems simple. Communicate this belief to whoever will listen within the university and don’t be discouraged. From there, our passion for the game and determination to create a stronger community, will get us the rest of the way. I know this sounds idealistic but, a girl can dream right?

Creating a Cougar Community... get your minds out of the gutter.

So here is a little background on me. I love hockey and for eight years we billeted Junior Hockey players in Grande Prairie. I have experienced almost every aspect of the hockey world: the fan, the billet, the volunteer, the behind the scenes, etc... I have recently joined a new portion of the hockey community, the Mount Royal Cougars Hockey program. I am a member of the game day staff and have enjoyed every minute of the hockey I’ve seen. I feel as though this community has some room to grow and this is why I have chosen it today.
As a working member of the Cougars game day staff, I see a lot of the strengths we have within MRU Athletics.

We have an amazing game day staff. The people that work the clock, judge goals or work admissions have a passion not only for hockey but for Cougar Hockey. They want to see the game run smoothly and professionally and I see that as an extremely positive aspect of the game. Another strength is we have dressed two very talented teams. The Men’s hockey is vying for number one is the ACAC and the Women’ hockey is running away with first overall. The existing resources are listed above. They range from the facilities to the people.

The opportunities are what I am interesting in. I know that moving into the Canadian Interuniversity Sport division is probably the largest opportunity we are facing but  I think there are some major improvements that need to happen before we are able to move there. Three of those things I deem as imperative – entertainment, marketing and consistency. When it comes to entertainment I feel as though between intermissions, we could be doing so much. The games, competitions, live demonstrations, the possibilities are endless but at the moment we have nothing in place. When it comes to marketing, we need to bring out fans, even if they aren’t students and increased marketing could entice more sponsors. Consistency needs to come from the outside in – consistency on the ice and consistency with marketing will increase our profile which is necessary to make it in the CIS.

 

At this point, I  believe that the fans are at the inform stage of empowerment and the staff are in between inform and consult. That is something else we need to improve: empowerment.

According to the athletes in the community, they feel as though the programs strength is in talent. They know that by being close to the top of the standings in the ACAC , they enhance the name and the perception of the team within the community. They have a strong position with the existing resources as they have just received brand new dressing room which are larger and better equipped before. The Mount Royal gym is also a strength as we have some of the nicest facilities and workout equipment in the ACAC.  The opportunities that they see are to continue the trend of pride in excellence and within the next few years to win a championship. The athlete that I spoke to does not believe, at this point, there are any major improvements to make.

 

I even talked to some people who were not a part of the community and tried to see what we could do to improve the sense of identity surrounding Cougars’ hockey. Some of the individuals stated that the fact that there is a physical separation between the campus and the arena kills the feeling of community and makes the hockey portion of athletics inaccessible. Also, one of the major complaints was that the athletes were not visible at Mount Royal. If people knew more about the hockey players and their stories, they would be more compelled to attend the games.

I feel as though the first part of this complaint is not easy to address, mind you, most parts of community development are not solved easily. One way that I would try to solve this issue would be to provide forms of transportation to and from the game for students. I feel as though the cost of transportation would be minimal compared to the creation of a Cougar Hockey community. The latter problem, to me at least, is much easier to resolve. Make the athletes known on campus. Advertize their stories. Make them into a poster boy. If the marketing department believes that people care and deep down I believe that students here at Mount Royal do care about their sports, than the money should be directed into this aspect of marketing.

Wow. That was long winded! Sorry guys! J