Page 50 - BusinessWest Sept. 29, 2021

Thunderbirds
Continued from page 47
a difficult time with little revenue. “I didn’t want to go to ownership and ask for cash. Not that they wouldn’t sup- portit,butIfeltwehadadutytodo our best, and I think we did better than we ever could have expected.”
The silver lining to all this has been growing demand for the activity for which the team exists — actually play- ing hockey.
“Obviously, we wanted to play last year. But what do they say — absence makes the heart grow fonder, right? I think that happened a little bit,” Costa told BusinessWest. “I think there’s a real pent-up demand for just having fun
in an exciting environment, and just doing things again with our friends and family. We’re hearing from people who can’t wait to get out and cheer on the team and hopefully see us have some success on the ice.”
Still, the past 18 months have reiter- ated Costa’s view that the Thunderbirds are more than a hockey team, and more than a business.
“I invest my heart and soul into
this thing. Sometimes people say, ‘it’s just an AHL hockey team.’ For me, it’s much more than that. I feel like we’re the lifeblood of the community. We’re at the centerpoint. Our whole market- ing campaign is going to be around ‘we are 413.’ And we feel that. We want to be that type of organization.
“The last year and a half, it’s been, ‘how to we get through this and get back to what we do really, really well?’ There’s no playbook to get you through this stuff. You’re doing things on the fly and trying to make the right decisions, but you don’t know the outcome of certain things.”
He called decisions on what staff to keep, furlough, or cut back hours two springs ago were “gutwrenching,” espe- cially because they came so quickly and unexpectedly.
“The Saturday before shutdown, we had our ninth sellout — tied for most ever, and we had three Saturdays left,” Costa said. “The next week, I had to furlough half the staff. And none of it was their fault. I mean, the week before that, we were on cloud nine. None of us thought this would happen. It com- pletely changed our organization. And you just have to work through it.”
Golf
Continued from page 49
the afternoon, for example,” said Alto- bello, noting that, even at private clubs, rounds matter because they add up to cart and food and beverage revenues. “For the amount of rain we received, we did way better than we could have.”
Perhaps more important than the number of rounds recorded this year is the evidence collected that the resur- gence the game saw in 2020 might have some legs.
“For the amount of rain we
received, we did way better
”
“There’s a ton of interest — people who quit the game for years have got- ten back into it,” he said, adding that this interest is across the board, young
highest it’s ever been,” he noted, add- ing that the pandemic certainly had something to do with this. “We’ve had a solid year overall, despite everything, and I think that bodes well for the future.”
When It Rains...
Looking ahead to next year, Fon- taine said area courses will likely have considerable work to do to make sure fairways, tees, and greens are in good shape for the spring given all the rain
in 2021.
“I think everyone is a little nicked
up, a little banged up from all the sit- ting water on the fairways — when the sun comes out, that just burns the turf,” he explained. “So I’m sure most courses will be overseeding and praying for recovery; there’s going to be extra fertilizer put down
and a lot of grass seed planted over the next few weeks.”
Meanwhile, a different kind of seed — a pandemic-fueled resurgence in the game — seems to have already taken root in this region. And it con- tinues its growth spurt despite weather patterns that haven’t been seen in decades, if ever.
And that’s why the future of this business seems, well, sunny. u
George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]
than we could have.
That said, “our goal is to get back to normalcy as quickly as possible, but also doWit responsibly and do it
omen of
the right way,” he noted — even if that and old, men and women. “They’re still means wearing masks a little (well, using it as a way to get out and spend
hopefully just a little) longer. “It’s going time with people they like or love with- to take some time, but we’re really well- out being in an indoor setting.” positioned as an organization to come Piecuch agreed. He said that, as
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