From the Desk of the GM - March 31, 2010

Field of Dreams Update, etc.

It's been a while since I've posted anything here, so I've got some catching up to do. Here's an update on what's happening with the Field of Dreams Foundation as well as an update on "Team Goldeyes" and our Police Service Half Marathon Relay fundraising efforts.

Fillmore Riley LLP K’s for Kids Program

Last year I talked about the Fillmore Riley LLP K’s for Kids program. Just for fun, I got out the abacus and did some math. Here’s a recap:

“Working with a number of 300,000 fans per season, if only one per cent (or 3,000) of those fans participated in the program and pledged five cents per strikeout with an average of 300 strikeouts thrown by Goldeyes pitchers, the amount donated would be $15 per person. Multiplied by 3,000 fans, that would add up to $45,000 that would go to the Field of Dreams Foundation, which would end up in the hands of children’s charities in Manitoba. To take the math a little further, even if 3,000 fans pledged one cent per strikeout, or $3 per person, that would still be $9,000, which is more than the program currently raises.”

Well, we didn’t quite make it to $45,000 but we did raise $14,461 in 2010. The 2009 amount eclipsed last year’s amount by a full $5,000. So, thank you to all who helped make that happen and a special thank you to Fillmore Riley who, for the second consecutive year, is the title sponsor of the program.

So, if you think you might have a spare $15 between now and the end of September, send in a pledge for 5, 10 or 15 cents per strikeout. All you have to do is pledge a few dollars, our pitchers will do all the work striking out the opposition. Please click here to download a pledge form.

Goldeyes Field of Dreams Charity Golf Tournament
Monday, July 12, 2010 – Bel Acres Golf & Country Club

The 16th annual Goldeyes Charity Golf Tournament takes place at Bel Acres Golf & Country Club on Monday, July 12. It’s a great day that has as much to do with fun, camaraderie and team spirit as it does golf. The tournament is currently 70% sold out, so if you are thinking about entering a team, please give me a call at 982-2273 and I’ll save you a spot. Here are some pics from last year's event:





Winnipeg Police Service Half Marathon Relay

It’s now just over a month until Rick and I will run in the Winnipeg Police Service half marathon. According to Rick, he has been training very hard for this. He is currently running three or four times a week and anywhere from 25 minutes to an hour each time. He’s promised me that he’ll complete the first leg of the relay (about 10.5 km) in 55 minutes or less.

Our pledge drive has gone very well so for with more than $1,600 raised for the Canadian Cancer Society. Thank you very much to everyone who has pledged to date. If you would like to pledge “Team Goldeyes”, please click here and donate whatever you can spare. And, if you've got nothing else to do the morning of Sunday, May 2, come on out to cheer Rick on through the first leg of the relay. Click here to view the route for the first leg. Who knows, maybe there will be a special prize for the best home-made "motivational Go Team Goldeyes" sign we see along the course!

Next up on the blog will be this year's promotional schedule. We've got some great things planned for 2010, so check back here soon to get all the details!

Until next time...

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March 29: Taylor's Ticket Tour - Day 15

We’re getting close to the end of the 2010 Ticket Tour. April is right around the corner and before we know it, baseball will be upon us.

On Monday, we passed the 200 mark in our draw for that spectacular framed “Winnipeg Goldeyes” print by our very-talented friend Roman Swiderek. Someone will win it this week, so check out goldeyes.com to see whether you’re the lucky recipient of our gorgeous draw prize.

In the meantime, Day 15 was a busy one.

We started by visiting old friends Duane Penner at Road Trips Travel and Adam Gaiser at Mark’s Work Warehouse and then we took a ride down Dugald Road to meet some terrific people.

Stopped in at Transcona Trailer Sales and had a great conversation with Budd Bier, Travis Bromley and Evan Pepper. Travis already has his tickets in Section I, but Budd seemed really interested in joining us at the park this season.

We then had a visit with Devan Monette and Tyler Bromley (yes, Travis’s brother) at Rond’s Marine and followed that up by stopping in at GNR CampingWorld. We spent 10 or 15 minutes with Doug Kendel at GNR who said business this year was great.

“And that’s amazing when you consider all the recession talk,” he said. “We sell luxury items and it’s been very busy for us for quite awhile. You wouldn’t know there was a recession here.”

We stopped in at Genivar (“a global leader in consulting engineering”) and met with Joyce Hay, who promised to circulate the ticket package around the office, before dropping in at Dynamic Machine Corp. and leaving a package with Jason Price and Richard Weiss.

With that, we moved on to Ashland Chemical, where our great weather was the topic of conversation. Our final stop was at CDP Imaging, where we had a nice chat with company president Frank R. Mueller.

In all, it was a great Day 15 and we’re just about ready to draw our lucky prize winner.

Stay tuned.

March 25: Taylor's Ticket Tour - Day 14

The real reward of the 2010 Ticket Tour comes when folks we meet along the trail get interested enough in the Goldeyes to do more than just buy a mini-pack or rent a suite for a single game.

This week, we were able to complete an arrangement with Brendan Rogers and his associates Paul Winestock and Ryan Downey at RBC Dominion Securities, to purchase a quarter of a suite for the 2010 season. Obviously, our visit with Brendan last month set the wheels in motion and we thank Brendan, Ryan and Paul for becoming partners with the Winnipeg Goldeyes.

Day 14 was a busy day in as much as we spent most of it sitting down in meaningful discussion with potential ticket buyers. Day 14 was a little more hard sell than soft.

We talked at length with our great friend George Sigurdson of Sigurdson Financial, one of the real committed Winnipeggers, who not only renewed his season tickets, but also purchased 20 tickets for the season opener on May 20 that he’ll donate to MacDonald Youth Services. George is one of those guys that makes Winnipeg a great place to live.

Then we had lunch with Rick Watts, president of Fabris-Milano Group Ltd., marble, terrazzo and ceramic tile contractors. Rick was a member of the last University of Manitoba Bisons team to win Canada’s national university basketball championship, a former member of both Canada’s national basketball and volleyball teams and a creator of backyard professional whiffle ball. We know we’re going to see Rick at the ballpark on a number of occasions this summer.

We then dropped in at monart in St. Vital to visit our friend Darren Charron who was very interested in this year’s terrific ticket deals before dropping off half a dozen packages with Kevin Kaiser and Don Coucelles at Investors Group West on Portage Avenue. They always purchase a number of suites at the Goldeyes games and we expect to see them in the park a lot this summer.

We also visited with Melodye Whitesell from the Manitoba Aboriginal Sport and Recreation Council about some group nights, did a follow up with Blake Russell at the Manitoba Metis Federation, spoke at length with Kris Kopansky (the managing partner at Earl’s Polo Park) and then had a tremendous discussion with Neil Dalrymple, the general manager of Assiniboine Athletic Club. Neil loves the ballpark and knows first hand that Canwest Park is about the best place one can spend a summer evening in Winnipeg.

It was a great day, spent with a lot of people that already love the Goldeyes and the ballpark. And we also added 12 more business cards to our draw for that sensational framed Roman Swiderek print.

March 19: Taylor's Ticket Tour - Day 13

Some days are just better than others. Take Day 13 of the 2010 Goldeyes Ticket Tour as an example.

It began way out west with a stop at the ESSO Avitat near the airport. A great young woman at the flight desk said she’d get our ticket news out to all the pilots from the small airlines and private jets that fly out of the Avitat.

I then spent some time with our old pal Murray Hill, the business development director for a marketing and communications firm known as ChangeMakers. Murray has long been a friend of Goldeyes sales and marketing director Dan Chase, so I expect to see my old friend at the park a lot this summer.

From there, we (at this point my student assistant Chelsea Larsen from Red River College had joined the caravan) dropped in at Winnipeg Sport and Leisure and met Natalie LaRoche. Natalie and most of her staff gathered round to talk Goldeyes and one of the customers, Roberta from Prairie Places Inc., asked for a couple of packages to take back to the office. Evidently, Roberta has known the popular Dan Chase from way back in another, younger, life.

We then moved on to Western Storage where we met Sandra Tucker who really seemed to enjoy the Skysuite nights she and her fellow employees have spent at Canwest Park. We then dropped in at Starlite Communications, followed by stops at Phase II Autobody Ltd., Aqua Tech and Crown Utilities Ltd.

At Crown Utilities, Chelsea spent some time with longtime Goldeyes season-ticket holder Frances Adolph, and learned what it means to be a real Goldeyes fan (not that she wasn’t already). And we also popped in at Thomas Auto and Tire.

Day 13 ended by going viral. We spent the first 15 minutes of Marty Gold’s Great Canadian Talk Show on 92.9 KICK-FM talking about Goldeyes tickets, the upcoming season and the spectacular team that Rick Forney has assembled.

The message was simple: It’s time to get your tickets because this is shaping up to be the best year of Goldeyes baseball – ever!

March 11: Taylor's Ticket Tour - Day 12

Battling the rain and muck isn’t always fun but it does send a message: If it’s plus five and sloppy in Winnipeg in mid-March, baseball season can’t be that far away.

On Day 12 of the 2010 Goldeyes Ticket Tour, we once again brought along our student job-shadower, Chelsea Larsen, as our sales assistant and she did another outstanding job.

In fact, Chelsea got to handle a couple of solo efforts, paying a visit to both Glenn Harrison at General Paint and Heather Morris at First Avenue Office Furnishings Ltd. I’m sure they enjoyed Chelsea’s appearance a lot more than they would have enjoyed mine.

Meanwhile, we dropped in on Glenn Lepp’s people at Custom Woodworking, the receptionists at Kern-Hill Furniture, a terrific guy at Speedy Auto Glass on Nairn who said he’d be seeing his boss, Jim Capek, later in the day, a very nice young lady at Jade Transport Ltd., who said she’d be sure to hand our ticket package to company president Larry Dyck and an extremely pleasant lady at Paramount Windows who told us she’d make sure Tim Dudeck (who handles their advertising and what not) would see the ticket package right away.

We had a terrific visit with Chris Smith at the Rent-All Super Centre on Nairn who told us the best thing about Canwest Park is that he can walk home after the games. That is one of the great things about downtown baseball.

We talked to Rich at ICI Paints who told us store manager Darren Kuhlman was a big Goldeyes fan and that head groundskeeper Don Ferguson (aka Fergie) had purchased paint there in the past.

And Eric Hastie at Tool World told us they’d had a group outing at the ball park a couple of years ago and looked forward to another one this summer. Fergie told us he’s purchased a number of tools at Tool World.

We look forward to seeing all our new friends at Canwest Park this summer. Meanwhile, there are now 135 business cards in our draw for that sensational framed print by Roman Swiderek.

March 10: Taylor's Ticket Tour - Day 11

Sometimes you need to get out of the office in the winter and talk to the people that really enjoy coming to Canwest Park to get a true sense of how great an evening at the ballpark can be.

That seemed to be the theme on Day 11 of our 2010 Ticket Tour as my new sales assistant, Chelsea Larsen, a student at Red River College who is in for a week of job-shadowing, and I headed down Archibald to Nairn and visited some of the businesses that are, essentially, our neighbours.

It was nice to see people that are busy and ready for a fun-filled baseball season.

We started by visiting the folks at the Habitat for Humanity Store and we also ran into Ron Raap from Premier Printing who had as many good offers for us as we did for him.

Chelsea and I walked over to Regional Products Ltd. and discovered many of the employees enjoy nights at the Goldeyes games. We then walked in on Dennis Delorme and his crew at Praxair on Nairn, a huge company that supplies atmospheric, process and specialty gases. The boys were busy but said they loved a night at the ballpark.

From there we visited Don Sicotte at Metro Centre Ltd., which provides everything from trailers and trailer parts to dock hardware, do-it-yourself aluminum fascia eavestroughs and vinyl siding. Don and his partner Maggie Pearson had a terrific 2009 and he was so busy, he could hardly take a breath, but he did say how much he enjoyed the ballpark and he’d get back to us the second he could sit down.

“I always dreamed of the being the boss and just barking out orders,” he said with a laugh. “Well, I’m the boss, but I’m too busy doing the work to bark orders.”

We then dropped in on Dave Ratte, the branch manager of Cloverdale Industrial Protective Coatings, the industrial division of Cloverdale Paints. Dave was thrilled to see us, probably because he was an old schoolmate of Jamie Betterns, my colour analyst on the Safeway Goldeyes telecasts on Shaw Bettens. Dave is another one of those guys that loves the ballpark and we’ll see often this summer.

From Cloverdale, we walked over to Carpet Girl Inc. and met design consultant James Harris. James is a New Yorker that calls Canwest Park one of his all-time favourite ballparks.

Hope we see all the Carpet Girl employees this summer.

We also met with Robert Lacey at Dufrense Furniture, who loves attending Goldeyes games with his wife, Harold Duncan at United Furniture Warehouse, who was very friendly, and the folks at Quality Life Services Inc. In fact, we met with a woman at Quality Life whose daughter was a fan services rep at Canwest Park last year and who has another daughter ready to join the crew this season.

In total, we put 14 more cards in our draw for that beautifully framed Roman Swiderek print, bringing our total to 125.

March 4: Taylor's Ticket Tour - Day 10

There are just some days that are too good to be true. I’ve found that many of those days occur when you leave the confines of the Perimeter Highway and head to other parts of Manitoba. That’s when you absolutely, truly believe in the motto on the licence plate.

After spending Day 10 of the 2010 Ticket Tour in Carman and Morden, I can tell you without reservation, that this IS Friendly Manitoba.

I must start, however, by apologizing to Craig Keenan. Craig is the service manager at Medichair Winkler and it was his idea to take part of the tour and head south. It was a great idea and my plan was to meet with the Northland Machinery guys in Carman and then head to Morden, Winkler and Altona.

Well, I’ve had to re-schedule the Winkler/Altona portion of the trip to March 24 or 25. That’s because I ran out of daylight in Carman and Morden. Sorry, Craig, but as you probably know better than anyone, these are the friendliest people on the planet and I just had too many lunches and too much coffee and by 5 o’clock, I was still on the west side of the traffic lights on Highway #3.

We started in Carman, finished our promotional deal with Northland Machinery and then went to lunch at the Carman Golf Club with Les, John and Kyrke from Northland.

By that time, it was early afternoon and I still didn’t know what I was in for.

The first stop in Morden/West Winkler was at Bio-Heat Resources where Steve Alder and the rest of the new owners were about as fun and friendly as it gets. Hope to see them at the ballpark soon.

Then we met Tyler Friesen at Wentworth Ag. Inc., Kevin Bergen at Enns Agri-Sales, a wonderful young woman at Greenvalley Bobcat and the boys at Tektite Manufacturing. Never met nicer people in my life.

Then we went downtown and met up with Brad Collins at Eldon’s Furniture, Lance Derksen at Farm Credit Canada, a lovely young woman at Home Hardware and some tremendous people who work for Rudy Ens at Gaslight Harley-Davidson. I’m embarrassed that it was the first time I’ve ever been to Gaslight Harley. It’s one of the nicest stores I’ve ever seen... anywhere.

After that we visited with John Conroy at Ed’s OK Tire Store in Morden, Andrew Nickel at Little Morden Service, Jerrilyn Peters at Greenvalley Equipment Inc., a nice young woman at Manitoba Hydro Customer Service who said she’d put the ticket package on the coffee room table and then a tremendous young receptionist at PJ Trailers.

At this stage, it was time to head home. But not before stopping in at Ed’s OK Tire Store in Carman, Sperling Industries in Sperling and then at Bestland Agro where we met president Matt Bestland who was an outstanding guy.

All in all, it was a great day and in the end we had a free lunch, a lake full of coffee and we even sold a few mini-packs. We also put 19 more business cards in the draw for that wonderful framed Roman Swiderek print. We’re now at 111 cards in the draw and 20 days to go.

Day 11 of the Tour will be next Tuesday. We’re heading north and west.

March 3: Taylor's Ticket Tour - Day 9

As the sun shines and the snow begins to melt, as it did on Day 8 of the 2010 Ticket Tour, it just feels like people are starting to think about spring

And when you think about spring, you automatically think about baseball, so Tuesday was a great day for our Goldeyes Ticket Tour.

We opened the day by dropping in on the folks at my MP’s office. Shelley Glover is back in Ottawa but her right-hand woman at the constituency office in St. Boniface was very charming and said she’d pass on our 2010 ticket offers to the Parliamentary Secretary for Official Languages.

After spending the morning in the office, we headed out for a luncheon meeting at Hu’s Asian Bistro on Ellice with Darrell Boughton from First Canadian Insurance and then began our trek through some of the businesses around the airport.

We stopped in at NAPA Auto Parts, visited Meditek on Ellice and then dropped in on Traction Heavy Duty Truck Parts before heading over to see our old friends at Lonestar Harley-Davidson.

Sharon and Marge Danylchuk are in the midst of a $300,000 renovation of their showroom on Oak Point Highway and we had a nice look around the new facility. It’s going to be spectacular when it’s finished.

We also spent some time talking about the motorcycle promotion they did on the Canwest Park concourse a couple of years ago, a season when their sales manager had to return to the park three times to change bikes – because he sold the bikes that were displayed on the concourse. I imagine we’ll visit again.

After our tour, we dropped in on an old friend, Larry Desrosiers, at Ecco Heating Products. In 1978, Larry and I played on the Southdale Pizza Place Falcons, the Winnipeg Intermediate Fastball League champions. Larry looked like he could still play. I suspect we’ll see plenty of Larry at the ballpark this summer.

We finished the day by having a visit with the boys at JS Furniture Gallery on Ellice and ran into our old pal Burnett Konsmo. Burnett was one of the really dedicated sports collectors in the province and he and the guys from the old Sports Collectors Club are still running auctions on the internet and by mail. Burnett is a regular at Canwest Park every summer. I just hope he can convince his fellow workers that a night at the park is more fun than a new sofa in the showroom.

All in all, a nice afternoon on Tour and we now have 92 business cards in our draw for that beautifully framed Roman Swiderek print.

March 2: Taylor's Ticket Tour - Day 8

Day 8 began as well as one could imagine. As expected, our good friend Roger Williams from CanCentral Card and Supply on Erin bought a pair of mini-packs and we definitely want to say “Thanks” and give a shout out to Rog.

Things got even better when our old pal and tremendous Goldeyes supporter Dave Petrishen, who just happens to be the new business consultant at Dairy Queen Restaurants, called about mini-packs for 2010 and we made a date for next week to talk about his options.

We dropped in on a couple of terrific young ladies on Des Meurons. Our first was at Overhead Door who said she’d pass on the ticket info to president Scott Wallace and the other at Special Laser Tech Inc. who wanted to barter for my Goldeyes jacket. I told her I’d bring Goldie into the office if she and her boss bought season tickets.

Had a great chat with Garry Gerbrandt who runs Dynamic Auto on St. Mary’s Road. As busy as he was in the shop, he was still buzzing about Sidney Crosby’s goal on Sunday. Aren’t we all? Still.

From Dynamic Auto, I wanted to get down the street to see Ray Giguere at Argy’s Collectibles. A tremendous baseball man, Ray also happens to be a Goldeyes fan with a tough summer schedule. As umpire-in-chief of the BoniVital Umpires Association, he doesn’t have much time to enjoy baseball in the summer because he’s either umpiring or scheduling umpires.

In fact, anyone older than the age of 13 with an interest in making a few extra bucks this summer can call Ray at 253-1565 or 253-8452 and apply to be an umpire in St. Boniface-St. Vital. It pays up to $40 a game and there is no previous experience necessary (BTW, we’re still trying to figure out a way for Ray to tweak his schedule and buy a couple of mini-packs).

After spending almost an hour with Ray, we slipped across the street to see Dan Meyer at Meyer’s Auto. Dan was out of the office but his friendly staff told us the ticket package would be placed on his desk.

All in all, Day 8 was a productive day and we now have an even 80 business cards in our draw for that beautifully framed Roman Swiderek print.