North Bay Battalion hosting a first ever town hall for fans this Saturday

Ottawa Citizen

01-05-2025

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The North Bay Battalion is giving fans a first-time ever chance to ask the club's top brass, and that includes owner Scott Abbott, about the way the team runs their operation on and off the ice.
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This Saturday at 4 p.m. the team's management will assemble at centre ice at Boart Longyear Memorial Gardens to field questions from fans.
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Some of the questions will be submitted online and others will be asked in person.
It was the brainchild of the Battalion's President and Director of Hockey Operations Adam Dennis.
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'There are a lot of things we want to be transparent about,' says Dennis. 'We want to give fans that are close to us an inside look at how we do things. How we justify some of the decisions we have made and give these fans a little peek into the future.'
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Battalion season ticket holders got the first invites largely because the club has their emails on file. They were asked if they wanted to submit some questions online. However, Dennis says that the event is not just restricted to that group.
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'Our development camp is going on this weekend, and the public is welcomed to attended and they are certainly welcome to attend the town hall,' says the Battalion President and Director of Hockey Operations.
'We are going to be set up at centre ice (at Boart Longyear Memorial Gardens). What we are going to do is firstly have a presentation of what we do and what is being worked on. There will be questions that are being submitted, you can ask questions online, and our goal is to get as much information as possible out here,' says Dennis. 'People can also ask questions (directly) at the event. We will have a sheet that you can put your question on, and we will try to get to as many as we can.'
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Dennis and his staff were hired to run the hockey team and make decisions on its behalf. Why does the organization feel it is necessary to give the public a level of access and input like this?
'When you are open to assumptions people make them. People have a sense about why we do things, and we want to have the chance to tell them why we do things,' says Dennis. 'We want the feedback, a small community like North Bay and the people here are a part of our family. We want to make sure we represent them to the best of our ability.'
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After three straight runs to the Ontario Hockey League Eastern Conference Final the Troops had a year where they traded away veterans, finished with a losing record and made a quick playoff exit. The Nugget asked Dennis was that a reason for this initial open house
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'No, this is just one of the things we really wanted to do. There have been a lot of questions that we get and not just on the hockey team,' says Dennis. 'We get questions about ticketing and things like that. We make tough decisions all the time and we will have a chance to explain that process. We will also be able to share a bit of our vision. We are not expecting everyone to agree with it, but we want to explain it (from our perspective)