The BC ball hockey mess keeps getting more and more interesting.
I have been told that one of the main reasons, besides all the alleged corruption, that led to Ontario’s removal as a member of the CBHA revolves around governance changes that were requested by the CBHA’s Minor Council.
Apparently back in 2010 Minor Council made a list of recommended constitutional changes designed to give the minors in Canada equal votes in the CBHA.
As of right now in the CBHA minors have zero guaranteed votes even though they are almost half the country’s membership.
That means no control over how the CBHA spends monies contributed by kids or donated for kids programs, hence the ability to misuse funds (see my blog on Canadian Ball Hockey hi-jacked by hoodlums).
In BC, West Coast Minor Ball Hockey Association has 5,000 youth members in comparison to BCBHA’s 2,000 adults, however, the BCBHA controls the purse strings of government money from BC’s Ministry of Community, Sport and Cultural Development and has been taking the lion’s share of the grants to fund adult programs.
More cash in the pockets of Fernando and Mike I guess. In order to get a bigger slice of the grant pie, the WCMBHA made a secret deal with the BCBHA to abandon fellow Minor Council members demanding CBHA constitutional changes.
This left Ontario out in the cold at the CBHA annual general meeting last October as the lone voice on behalf of the kids.
It was at that meeting when former CBHA president Di Gironimo stormed out citing backroom dealings by the CBHA Trio (Iannitto, Schweighardt and Gortsos) undermined the CBHA constitutional process in order to protect their own interests and pay cheque gravy trains.
So it seems like our very own WCMBHA made a deal with the devil that has since caused a series of events that could see its own demise and the CBHA as we know it.
Several WCMBHA leagues have come forward claiming that they did not support this deal and did not support the fiasco last October.
Many are disgusted by the WCMBHA president for making backroom deals and selling out the kids in BC and across Canada.
In the past several weeks volunteers have resigned from the WCMBHA Board, Junior Nationals that were to be hosted in Vernon will be cancelled, the Western Challenge Cup is in trouble of cancellation and there are rumblings of leagues leaving WCMBHA.
Edmonton Minor BHA has been the loudest voice in demanding equality for kids and they are pissed at WCMBHA for failing to back Alberta Minor’s efforts to force change.
With Ontario out and Alberta not participating the Junior Nationals are done. Alberta is contemplating not even attending the long-running Western Challenge Cup.
So what’s got everyone in a tizzy? The CBHA, like a schoolyard bully, has been robbing the kids of their lunch money. 75% of membership fees (net of insurance) from minors across Canada is being used by the CBHA to fund adult programs.
That’s right 75%! In addition, you have the CBHA Trio taking $15,000 of monies allocated to Junior Team Canada to cover Men’s Team Canada losses.
Without any voting rights the minors cannot stop the CBHA Trio from gorging at the cash trough.
I can’t imagine these kind of shenanigans ever going on at Hockey Canada or in other sports.
It seems as though the CBHA is destined to not only lose Ontario but probably all of its minor leagues as well once all the truth comes out about the misuse of funds and refusal to give kids voting control of their own budgets.
If my math is right, that means the CBHA will have lost 70% of its membership if the rest of the minors join Ontario outside the CBHA.
So exactly why have we not thrown out the CBHA Trio for being so incompetent?
Probably for the same reasons that they are getting away with all the corruption and collusion, because we are not speaking up loud enough!!!THESE ARE NOT MY WORDS BUT RATHER FROM THE BALL HOCKEY SENTINEL.
THE LINK IS AS FOLLOWS. http://ballhockeysentinel.tumblr.com/
YOU TELL ME WHAT IS WRONG WITH SPORT??????
