Nighthawks fans will have one more reason to unite this season in support of their favourite team. Beginning September 23, the team is hosting a Chase the Ace fundraiser every Monday night at Smitty’s in Niverville.
Monday’s kickoff event brought out the entire Nighthawks roster plus coaches, board members, team volunteers, and fans. Draws were held every half-hour throughout the evening with giveaways of Nighthawks merchandise, Jets tickets, and more.
In the end, Nancy Braun was the big winner, taking home an automatic cash prize of $500. Since she didn’t draw the ace of spades, however, the pot will continue to grow.
After night one, the pot sits at $2,821.
Nighthawks board president Clare Braun says that multiple winners will come away with prizes from every Chase the Ace night.
“What we did is we seeded the pot,” Braun says. “We started it with $2,500 and guaranteed that, from the first event on, we’d be giving away a minimum of $500 every night.”
While attendance is encouraged to help rally team spirit, fans can also buy their Chase the Ace tickets on the Nighthawks website in advance of each event.
Like any similar lottery, the cash pot will continue to build until some lucky winner pulls the ace of spades.
“There have been Chase the Ace winnings in Canada that have gone [up to] $2 million,” Braun says. “It’s like winning a [major] lottery.”
Braun adds that while some of the fundraising money may go towards team operations, the board hopes to funnel a good portion of it towards an infrastructure fund.
Thanks to recent fundraising efforts, the Nighthawks were able to add a bar and special seating area, with upper and lower decks, to the east side of the arena last season. They called it The Kettle, a word used to describe a group of nighthawks.
This time around, the board is focusing their energy on the addition of a much-needed dressing room.
“We’re looking at probably a million and a half dollars that we’re going to have to invest in the next few years on a new dressing room,” says Braun. “Hockey players, when they come to communities, they compare your dressing room to others. We’re really fortunate that Niverville’s become a destination point for players that really want to come here. But the dressing room issue has to be resolved.”
Since the team got its start two years ago, players have been using trailers outside the arena as makeshift dressing rooms.
The new dressing room, currently in early design phase, will not only provide a place for the home team to gear up but include a training room, a player’s lounge, as well as offices for coaches and trainers.
In total space, approximately 3,000 square feet will need to be added to the existing arena.
As for why this space wasn’t accounted for during the original build, Braun says that town council faced some tight restrictions if they were going to be eligible for millions of dollars in federal grant money.
To qualify, plans for the proposed CRRC had to place a great emphasis on community multifunctional use. Adding professional-level sports dressing rooms to the plan would have given the government an undesirable impression at the time and risked the town losing out on the grant.
For this reason, the Nighthawks will just have to work a little harder in the coming years to fundraise beyond their operational needs.
Braun says that approximately 20 percent of the team’s revenue needs to come from fundraising efforts. Ticket sales and sponsorship cover the other 80 percent.
“Typically, when a fan comes to a game, they’re there to watch the players on the ice,” says Braun. “But the players on the ice is the end product of all the work that was done by the board and the volunteers and the coaching staff. This [Chase the Ace event] represents a part of the labour and work to get a season going.”
Other fundraisers the team has become reliant on include golf tournaments and black-tie galas. All require a dedicated team of behind-the-scenes people to pull off every year.
Braun says that most people probably don’t realize the exponential costs involved in operating an MJHL home team. These annual budgets can run between $750,000 and $1 million.
Still, he adds, its all worth it when you consider the impact it makes on people’s lives—and that impact extends well beyond the pride and entertainment value derived from a Junior A hockey team.
For example, Braun takes pride in watching these young players as they move up the ranks to achieve even bigger hockey dreams.
“Scholarship opportunities are afforded to players at the division one level who are deemed to be the highest quality,” Braun says. “We have three of those players on our team this year. As 18-year-olds, they’ve already signed their NCAA division one with fully paid scholarships for four years of university in the United States.”
According to Braun, the Nighthawks have already built a pretty exemplary track record, helping 13 players graduate to the NCAA or other university sports programs across the continent.
As important in Braun’s mind, though, are the skills these young players develop which make them all-around better human beings for having been a part of the MJHL. Not only do they learn the value of hard work, they also develop a giving spirit as they volunteer in countless areas around the community.
At any given time throughout the season, Nighthawks players can be found shoveling snowy driveways for senior citizens, assisting with operations at the Niverville MCC Thrift Store, or visiting the elderly at the local personal care home.
Everyone is invited to join the Nighthawks for the next Chase the Ace event on Monday, September 30 from 6:00 to 8:30 in the Smitty’s lounge.
