The NHL lockout has shut down the Kenaston Super Draft until the team owners and players work out a resolution.
Don George, chairman of the Super Draft, said they would not start a draft until the season starts and the regular season draft might not even occur this year depending on how far into the season the lockout drags on.
“We can’t do anything until there is a settlement with the NHL (team owners and the National Hockey League Players Association),” said George. “Then it would have to depend on when that’s done. If that’s done before the first of the year, then you’ve got time to do things, but if it gets to be into the New Year I’d say it might be hard to do a regular season.”
The Kenaston Super Draft, put on by the Kenaston Lions Club, has been raising money through its regular season and playoff hockey pools for Lions Club projects around the community as well as national and provincial charities since the start of the 1984-85 regular season.
George said the separate regular season and playoff drafts usually attract about a “couple thousand contestants” to each who hand over $40 for one entry or $100 for three for a chance of winning the grand prize of $30,000 in each pool.
In the past 29 years, the Kenaston Super Draft has raised approximately $11 million in revenue including $4.5 million in prizes and $3.5 million in charity funds.
“We do things in the skating rink, the swimming pool, our Kenaston Place community centre and also the Kenaston School,” said George about what Lions Club projects the money is put towards. “If we can we always try to put some in towards charity too.”
The lockout is also affecting local employment in the town as administration of the draft usually involves a paid staff of approximately 25 people who will not be able to start work until the NHL gets back to business.
George said they have been thinking about some possibilities other than the NHL for a draft this year, but for now nothing is going on. He said a minor hockey Super Draft was not looked into due to the amount of work that would be involved in setting it up.
“In past lockouts with the whole season (lost due to a lockout in 2004-05) we didn’t have any draft and back when the first one happened (1994-95) they started in January and we ran a partial draft,” he said. “With this one we have no way of knowing what is going to happen. It could be over in a week or they could be out the whole year.
George said they may be losing money due to the lockout, but were still “just affected a little bit” compared to the people that are actually employed with the teams and that is who he is thinking about as this continues.
“I just wish they’d play hockey,” he said. “That would make it easier on everybody.”