With the clock ticking toward some answers in the ongoing junior hockey saga, both sides have spent the days leading up to a pair of special meetings jockeying for votes.
The first meeting is set for Sunday at 10 a.m., when 15 resolutions put forward by the Ontario Hockey Association will be voted on that would, if approved, reshape the landscape within the country’s largest junior hockey organization.
Many of the OHA’s proposals are league-specific, but the governing body said it is willing to dissolve its board of directors and cede power to a trio of trustees – who have no affiliation with the OHA – put in place by the Ontario Hockey Federation and Hockey Canada until the 2019 OHA annual general meeting.
In a memo to teams this week, the OHA said it made the decision because the current set-up was “headed for long-term disaster” and that its proposal was “in the best interests of all the teams and all of the players … not driven by a handful who were determined to undermine the current OHA and in the future have an OHA that would be controlled by a small handful of people with agendas they share only amongst themselves.”
The OHA also offered a mea culpa by acknowledging the dysfunction within its current board, which has lost Tom Strauch and Don Kilgallen in recent weeks.
“As everyone knows by now the OHA is polarized with what amounts to warring factions on both sides of several issues that had influenced and infiltrated the board, and we were reacting daily to one crisis after another rather than running the OHA,” the memo said. “It was a huge decision for us to resign and one that was emotional and difficult. But this move is to save the institution. We had to put ourselves and the current board aside to do that. This couldn’t be about us as directors. This had to be about what was best for the OHA and junior hockey in Ontario.”
Current OHA director Arnie Lawlor wrote in an email Oct. 12 that he voted against the association’s special meeting resolutions. He said the governance committee established in the spring should have had a chance to finish its job.
“Can you imagine all the directors (whom YOU voted for) are gone and will be replaced by three people selected by the OHF?” he said.
Strauch, who resigned as OHA chair last month, has since joined a group of “concerned members” that has been granted its own meeting Oct. 15 at 7 p.m., also in Kitchener, if the OHA’s meeting isn’t successful.
Those teams – 25 from all three junior leagues – have tabled a condensed proposal that would result in Strauch returning as chair while four other current directors would be replaced.
The 66-year-old sent a scathing email this week that was distributed to member teams and called the OHA’s integrity into question.
“The OHA has long been run by a very small group of individuals with little or no regard for the membership but only the quest for power over the organization,” he wrote. “There are certain people in this group that have no problem voicing their contempt and absolute hatred of some of your membership and it is abundantly clear that they will never support any initiative brought forward by these members whether it is good for the OHA or not.”
The Ontario Junior Hockey League also distributed an email with multiple documents entitled: Member facts vs. OHA fiction and democracy vs. dictatorship.
“The facts are that the OHA is trying to hijack your OHA,” one memo stated. “Please vote against the OHA’s resolution by abdication on Sunday. If you enjoy dictatorship, governance by fear and fiction and want no voice, vote for the OHA.
“On Monday, you can help to build a new and improved OHA by replacing five directors … with five new directors who will allow the OHA restructuring committee to get along with the restructuring process that we all endorsed in Alliston back in June.”
The meetings will be conducted by parliamentarian George Meek. Each team and OHA director has one vote, which will be done by secret ballot. Voting and tabulation will be scrutinized and audited independently by OHF legal and accounting personnel.
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