Vipers Owner Happy With First Season; Eyes Upgrades For Kal Tire Place

The rookie co-owner of the Vernon Vipers says he “couldn’t be happier” with how his first season with the team has gone.

John Glen and his brother Tom brought the BC Hockey League club from the late Duncan Wray’s family in September.

“It’s been absolutely awesome. I’ve got to know the league. It’s a great league, and a league I have great respect for,” Glen said in an interview with Beach Radio News.

Glen, who owns a number of car dealerships in Canada along with his brother, says he’s been pleased with the fan support this season, which he attributes to success on the ice and getting the team out into the community.

“To be quite honest, we were a last place team until Christmas time, and we’ve had the fan support all year. I believe there is a couple of circumstances that led to that: number one was having some success on the ice, but number two was being visible in the community. And Brenda Stewart was the lead in that department, in the number of schools that we had our boys out to, and the various events, the Terry Fox Run, the Christmas Carnival, and those types of things don’t go unnoticed,” says Glen.

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The Vipers have had five playoff crowds of 2,000 fans or more, including a sell-out of 3,205 for game 7 against Trail March 25th.

The Vipers visit the Prince George Spruce Kings for game 1 of the Fred Page Cup Friday, the Snakes’ first trip to the BCHL Final since 2014.

The Vipers, and their fans, would like to see improvements to Kal Tire Place to improve game presentation — with one popular suggestion being a video-capable score clock —  but Glen isn’t holding his breath.

“I will say this: dealing with the City, things don’t happen overnight, so there’s been ongoing dialogue with some of the things were looking to change and I’m confident at some point — and I don’t want to put a deadline or date on it — but we’ll be able to make some of those changes.”

Glen says a video clock would be expensive, and he has other upgrades he would like to see first.

“I think number one would be the lighting. I think we should be going to LED lighting where we can run a light show through some LED lights, and just brighten up the place. There is numerous areas where we need to improve.”

Glen would also like the Vipers to get more office space in the building.

“As a franchise, I believe that we need more room just to get into the branding world and to get online. We’ve been gong back and forth with a new ticketing system which is online. Going back and forth with a marketer to get our clothing brand out there and those kinds of things. But it all takes room and that’s something were definitely short of and that’ part of the ongoing lease negotiations wit the City is to try and find some more room for the Vipers.”

Glen says it’s tight having three coaches and three office personnel in their current office space.