The Oceanside Generals plan to build their own dressing room at Oceanside Place.
With Junior B leagues like the Vancouver Island Junior Hockey League (VIJHL) discussing the possibility of being reclassified as Junior A-level hockey since the B.C. Hockey League (BCHL) divorced itself from Hockey Canada in order to become an independent league, the Generals want to be ready if it happens.
Dean Bruyckere of the Oceanside Generals Hockey Society appeared as a delegation at the Regional District of Nanaimo’s Oceanside Services Committee meeting on June 22, to seek support and financial assistance. He indicated BC Hockey and Hockey Canada require Junior A clubs to have a separate dressing room for the team.
Bruyckere said they’ve been considering a separate dressing room for quite some time now as they felt the club is outgrowing the facility.
The club started to set aside funds since 2018 in the hopes of getting this project going.
“We’re at a spot now where we have put enough funds to get this whole project started aside through sponsorship as well as some of the money we’ve generated over the last few years” said Bruyckere.
The Generals, the defending VIJHL champions, are also in need of an office space, a storage area for their merchandise that they sell at their kiosk during game day and other equipment. Currently, the club uses the four-foot storage space underneath the bleachers.
The plan is to have an on-site dressing room built outside the south wall of the Oceanside Place arena, which is just behind the penalty box of the Howie Meeker Arena. It would be approximately 2,400 square feet in size and would accommodate the actual dressing room area, training facilities that include weight area, bicycles, 10 shower units and two bathrooms, a storage area, as well as an area for trainers and physiotherapists. The Generals are also hoping to include an office space.
READ MORE: BC Junior B hockey leagues explore possibility of Junior A reclassification
“It would be a freestanding building and or possibly attached to the existing edge of the building,” said Bruyckere. “That’s still to be determined through consultation, which way would be the best way to do it.”
The Generals estimated the cost to be more than $300,000. On top of the money they have put aside, they have acquired around $100,000 commitment from sponsors, who are in favour of the project.
Bruyckere asked the RDN to contribute approximately $250,000, which would represent 45 per cent of the actual cost.
“The whole idea is to get this off the ground in the next year so we can break ground hopefully in a year from now,” said Bruyckere.
“We’re one or two teams in our Vancouver Island Junior Hockey League that doesn’t have a separate dressing room,” he added. “So those two teams are in the application process of doing this. It’s ourselves and then there’s Peninsula down on the South Island.
The departure of the B.C. Hockey League left Hockey Canada and BC Hockey without a Junior A circuit in this province and so it was speculated that the Junior B leagues could step up to that level. Junior B leagues in B.C. include the VIJHL, the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League (B.C. Interior) and the Pacific Junior Hockey League (Lower Mainland of B.C.).
Those three Junior B leagues are currently in discussion with each other on classification, VIJHL president Simon Morgan told Black Press Thursday, June 22.
The Oceanside Services Committee discussed the Generals proposal and unanimously voted to endorse the project by committing $250,000 but the source of the funds will still be determined by staff. This will be presented to the RDN board for approval.