Chris Chard

Sports Rescue: The South End Mustangs Professional Ice Hockey Team

Three years ago, Steve Thornton purchased the South End Mustangs, a professional ice hockey team competing in the D1 division in the United Kingdom. Unfortunately, Thornton has experienced challenging times during his ownership tenure. The team has achieved mediocre results on the ice and poor results off the ice. Thornton knows he needs help to turn the Mustangs franchise around. Thus, as a result, he turns to John Tapner, a sport business owner, operator, entrepreneur, and advisor. Tapner is best known as a professional sport consultant and TV personality, representing his company Sports Rescue, which is the same name as his hit television show. When an owner calls Tapner, it is because a professional sports team is in trouble and needs to be rescued.

“Show Me the Money … Plan!”

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Assets and obstacles: an analysis of OUA hockey from the coaches’ perspective

Purpose – The passion of Canadians for ice hockey is well documented; however, university teams in Canada are routinely ignored by consumers and the media. The authors’ goal was to better understand the context in which Ontario university hockey struggles and to address the theoretical question of how best to examine and evaluate the problems of sport‐specific organizations. Using the Value Dynamics Framework (VDF), the purpose of this paper was to examine whether or not this framework fits well with the realities facing not‐for‐profit OUA hockey teams, and if not, to create a framework specific to these teams.Design/methodology/approach – Semi‐structured in‐depth interviews were conducted with 15 of the 19 (77 percent) OUA hockey coaches during the 2010/2011 hockey season. The interview guide was drawn from the VDF elements and enabled the researchers to understand not‐for‐profit organizational assets, including physical, financial, employee/supplier, customer, and organizational.Findings – This paper of...