BCBusiness

BCBUSINESS.CA DECEMBER/JANUARY 2019 BCBUSINESS 25 I n a rare moment of downtime, Je Stipec gazes out on 18,000 or so empty seats that sur- round a massive sheet of ice. Soon the Vancouver Canucks will play host to defending Stanley Cup champions the Wash- ington Capitals, and if Canucks Sports & Entertainment's chief operating o-cer is nervous about how the third home game in the Canucks' schedule will go, he's not showing it as he sits in the press box. "Tonight we're going to have thousands of people here, and I look at this like one great big restau- rant," says Stipec, a graduate of St. George's School in Vancouver and SFU who was an usher at the Paci‹c Coliseum (the Canucks' home before they moved to Rogers Arena) in his 20s before running some of North America's top restaurant chains, including Keg Restaurants. "We're going to house everybody safely, we're going to feed them, we're going to entertain them, and then we're going to send them home. It's a pretty neat challenge." That it is. There's still three hours to go before puck drop, and Stipec has worked every minute of that into his schedule as he hustles out of the press box to various game- day meetings. The man who oversees the business side of a franchise that takes in about US$156 million in revenue a year, according to Forbes, has the vibe of a cool uncle. The for- mer rugby player is genial and well-dressed, and he listens intently to what he hears. He also comes across as some- one you don't want to let down—his quiet disappointment would be much more deafening than a loud scolding. Stipec leads some 950 sta on any given night, and if he doesn't know all of them by ‹rst name, it's hard to tell. As he makes his way through the bowels of Rogers Arena, stop- ping to greet everyone he sees ("When I was an usher, the guys that made an impact on me were the ones that knew my name and took the time to talk to me"), he's sure to hit a few points. He checks in on the food being served tonight in the club seats (pork tenderloin, braised short ribs and tuna tataki are the highlights). Hearing a curse word from around the cor- ner, he pops in on another chef with a warm but stern "No f-bombs, OK?" Stipec also visits the arena plaza to scare away any scalpers lurking on the premises: "They're allowed to sell on the street, but just not on the property. I try to kill them with kindness." Canucks Sports & Entertainment is hoping that its purchase of the Vancouver Stealth lacrosse club will bring more fans to Rogers Arena on days when the hockey team is off. With the rebranded Vancouver Warriors starting play at their new home in December, that remains to be seen. Although it's Canada's national sport, lacrosse wasn't quite work- ing at the Langley Events Centre. The Stealth posted the worst aver- age attendance among National Lacrosse League teams in 2017-18 en route to a 2–16 record that put it last in the standings. In five years in Langley, the team finished above the bottom in attendance just once. That season, it posted the second-worst mark. But Canucks chief operating officer Jeff Stipec thinks lacrosse can find an audience at Rogers. "There's five teams in the NHL that have lacrosse teams, and they made it really easy for us to understand the business model," Stipec says. "We spent a lot of time with Calgary and Colorado, and they were great partners in sharing with us how they've turned it into a success. We like that NHL/NLL model, where you can have that same engine driving two businesses." Stipec even sees potential for the company's hockey opera- tions to learn something from the new franchise. "I think we're going to try some wild things in lacrosse, and we'll see how it works and see if it would work at the hockey games," he says, noting that lacrosse is a grassroots sport. "But we're going to push the envelope. In Calgary, their line is 'Come for the party, stay for the game.' The price point is attractive–in that $25 range, a little cheaper for groups. I think we'll be able to attract a lot of people that'll say, hey, let's head over to Rogers for a game on Friday or Saturday night." –N.C. Lacrosse Purposes THE VANCOUVER CANUCKS ORGANIZATION ACQUIRED A NATIONAL LACROSSE LEAGUE TEAM IN JUNE. CAN IT TURN THE AILING FRANCHISE AROUND? FULL BOWL The Canucks have struggled lately, but Rogers remains packed

• Cover