By Mark MacDonald
Clippers Director of Business Operations Robb Hunter
NANAIMO – It’s all hands on deck as the Nanaimo Clippers set sail for the 2023-24 BC Hockey League schedule.
A new Clipper Captain program that sees corporate partners purchasing tickets so school children can attend home games at Frank Crane Arena, and a healthy increase in season ticket sales and corporate sponsorship has Director of Business Operations Robb Hunter excited about the year, which started September 22.
“Season tickets up, and corporate partnerships are significantly up over last year. We really appreciate that, and of course, we’re always looking to add more,” says Hunter, who has been with the club since 2020 after working for the Western Hockey League’s Medicine Hat Tigers. “Everybody loves their team this time of year, but we’re pretty excited.”
The Clipper Captain initiative was the brainchild of the Clipper business staff, after Hunter’s nine year old daughter came home one day last year, beaming, after captain Michael Craig had visited their elementary school.
“The students played tag and floor hockey with him, and she was thrilled, and as her Dad, I thought we had an opportunity to deliver a positive message as well,” he recalls. “We’ll be going into a number of elementary schools to meet with younger students, and the program will help teach kids what it would be like to be a Clipper Captain, including contributing to the community, being a good teammate, and focusing on mental health.
“We’ve had a number of local sponsors come on board to help, and they will be donating tickets to a game so they can come and watch the action on the ice.”
In conjunction with that, the Clippers have reconfigured their schedule so their Wednesday, November 1 game will move from 7 p.m. to 11 a.m. so students can attend.
“We’re working with the school district to bus over 1,000 students in to the game,” he notes. “I think we’ll reach a number of kids that have never been able to go to a Clipper game.”
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The BCHL is operating independently from Hockey Canada this year, which has allowed the league to expand its recruiting efforts. They will have their first player from Sweden, as well as a highly skilled young player, Chase Hull, who has moved to Nanaimo to play for the Clippers. He would have been prohibited by Hockey Canada from playing in BC.
The Clippers averaged 1,300 fans per game last year throughout the season, although it rose to 1,600 for post-Christmas contests.
This is the second season under the ownership of the Northern Lights Hockey Canada LLC group led by Brad Kwong, a former captain of Harvard University’s Division I hockey team. Kwong also heads a partnership that owns Iowa’s Dubuque Fighting Saints of the United States Hockey League, and is the former Chairman of the USHL Board of Governors.
“Our new ownership has been fantastic,” Hunter states. “They’re very hands-on. They have their finger on the pulse of the organization, and they’ve obviously had a lot of success in the USHL and we’re implementing a number of business practices they’ve utilized there. We think it’s gone very well.”
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