The problems with floor allocation time have been resolved but the Coquitlam Jr. Adanacs are still up for sale, according to general manager Ken Wood.
Last week, Wood and co-owner Rocky Zimmerman told The Tri-City News they were being forced to opt-out because of a push by the Coquitlam Minor Lacrosse Association to move the Jr. A's practice times to free up hours for CMLA squads.
But after a meeting on Friday afternoon between the Sr. Adanacs and the CMLA, which was mediated by the city, all parties agreed that the Jr. A's would swap their usual Thursday time slot for a Friday time slot for the season. The Sr. A's will also give their practice time for the month of April to the CMLA.
While Wood is satisfied the floor time issues have been resolved, he said plans to sell the club, which includes the Jr. B squad as well as the Intermediate A and B teams, are moving ahead.
"Rocky and I no longer want to fight these fights every year," he said. "The sale of the team is not 100% connected with the floor time. You can only be at this for so long."
Since announcing the team was up for sale last week Wood said he has not been approached with any serious offers. He added that he and Zimmerman will work to keep the team in Coquitlam, although it is possible the squad could be purchased by a group outside the municipality, which could open the door for relocation.
"There is a lot of groups and companies who are die-hard Coquitlam fans and will probably want to sit down with us," he said. "But if nobody is interested in sitting down and negotiating properly and it happens to be somebody from outside the city, that is going to be unfortunate."
Wood said he hopes a deal can be negotiated by the end of the upcoming lacrosse season.
But Garrett Ungaro, the vice-president of the Coquitlam Minor Lacrosse Association, maintains the issue of floor allocation was a "convenient scapegoat" for the two owners, who he said have wanted to sell the team for a while.
Neither Wood nor Zimmerman attended last Friday's mediation meeting between the CMLA, the city and the Adanacs, saying Sr. A's general manager Les Wingrove would speak on the Jr. A's behalf. Their absence, Ungaro said, was "disappointing."
"They made a fairly big stink about floor time and they were adamant they would sell the team if they didn't get their time," he said. "Then they didn't even show up."
Ungaro said while the current practice allocation schedule is not ideal for CMLA, it will allow all parties to move forward with their seasons.
If Wood and Zimmerman are unable to find a local buyer for the Jr. A squad, Ungaro said the CMLA would look into taking on the team's day-to-day operations. That idea did not sit well with Wood, who said the minor league association would have to "step up to the plate" financially.
Meanwhile, Sr. Adanacs general manager Les Wingrove said he was satisfied the floor allocation issues have been resolved. He told The Tri-City News the city's floor allocation policy, which gives first priority to minor sports teams, is flawed, but a contract would be drawn up acknowledging the Adanacs' "special relationship" with the city of Coquitlam.
"[The contract] will allow us to operate in future years without any problems that have arisen over the past two years," Wingrove said in a press release.
The Sr. Adanacs have been in operation, like the Jr. A's, since 1965. In that time, the seniors have qualified for five Mann Cup national championship championships, winning only once in 2001 at Vancouver's Pacific Coliseum and finishing runners-up the other four years (1989, '93, '98 and 2007). They haven't missed the four-team WLA playoffs in 15 years and are the only one of the seven current teams in the loop to have achieved that feat.
The Jr. Adanacs won the 2010 Minto Cup, emblematic of Canadian Junior lacrosse supremacy.
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