Goon's Gone, but Lawyers May Duke It Out
Thursday, June 23, 2005 04:02 AM
.jpg)
Mayor Kinsley talks to reporter after council votes 5-3 in favour of canning the hockey enforcers event.
Prince George City Council has voted in favour of cancelling the Battle of the Hockey Enforcers, (see Hockey Enforcers TKO'd...)but will the gloves be off and no holds barred in a lawsuit?
Promoter Darryl Wolski says he will explore legal action, and would be seeking damages in the "seven figure" range.
The City is also seeking a legal opinion, but it may be the promoter jumped the gun on announcing the event.
CN Centre Manager Phil Beaulieu says there is no actual signed contract. When asked if cancelling the August 27th slugfest would be a breach of contract, Beaulieu told a special meeting of Council, there wasn't any actual signed contract, but rather a letter of agreement and the final paperwork was still being developed.
Clearly, the Prince George Athletic Commission was still waiting for a sample of the gloves to ensure they were at least 140 grams, the legal weight needed to be considered a legal "prize fight".
It is generally believed the promoter, Darryl Wolski has about $1.4 million invested in the event. He is still considering legal action against Minneapolis where the event was cancelled after 5,000 tickets had been sold. It is rumoured about a thousand tickets had already been snapped up for the Prince George event.
As of 10:30 last night, both the CN Centre, and Ticketmaster were still offering tickets for the event.
Opinion250 will pass along ticket refund information as soon as it becomes available.
Previous Story - Next Story
Email
Print
Facebook
Twitter
Digg
Del.icio.usReturn to Home
Posted by: owl on June 23 2005 10:07 AM
Section 83 of the Criminal Code of Canada states that prize fights are illegal but that: "a boxing contest between AMATEUR sportsmen, where the contestants wear boxing gloves of not less than one hundred and forty grams each in mass ..... shall be deemed not to be a prize fight", thus making such AMATEUR events legal when meeting the restrictions stated.
The event was not an amateur event. If it had been, the sanction of the PG Athletic Commission would not have been required.
In addition, the notion that "the promoter jumped the gun on announcing the event" is a very real one., likely not for the reason thought by the individual stating so.
Again, the Criminal Code states:."Every one who ....advises, encourages or promotes a prize fight ....is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction." The exception in this case would be if the prize fight would be "any boxing contest held with the permission or under the authority of an athletic board or commission".
Thus, until it is established that this was a "boxing contest" and that it was being held with the permission of the PG Athletic Commission, any promotion of the event would be illegal under the Criminla Code since there is no "contract".
So, it becomes important to know the answers to exactly this line of questioning posed by Councillor Scott on Wednesday.
In my opinion, staff were evasive in responding to his line of questioning and were not forthcoming with providing documentary evidence for our city leaders nor the citizens of this community to view. It would be interesting to explore this matter further in order to determine exactly how well city staff was doing their work. An FOI request would hopefully not be required.
The City's solicitor will certainly get to know the answer to such more detailed questions in preparing to defend the City against any legal action by the promoter.