Contrary to rumours flying about town, the Kimberley Dynamiters will have a 2010-2011 season, says club president Rick Prasad.

However, it’s going to be difficult because the Dynamiter hockey club is in serious financial difficulty.

“Our board has agreed that the upcoming season will be a challenge for us, but we feel we have created a solid plan for shoring up our finances for the next season. We have finished our season deeply in the red due to poor attendance records, losses in sponsorship revenues, and reductions in gaming grants,” Prasad said.

One of the problems this past season was that many Dynamiter home games were scheduled on the same night as Kootenay Ice games in Cranbrook. Prasad believes that definitely had an impact on the number of fans attending Dynamiter games.

“This can be directly attributed to a 30 per cent decline in gate sales as several of our fans support both organizations. This year we will create our schedule after the Kootenay Ice has firmed theirs up. It just seemed like we ran into several obstacle this year, case in point our final playoff game was lightly attended because Team Canada was playing Slovakia to get into the gold medal round.”

One way to shore up support for the coming season is to increase season ticket sales. Prasad says the club would like to see 400 season passes sold. The packages will be released beginning in June.

Off season fundraising has begun as well with a homemade meat pie sale. Orders will be taken until March 17. To order leave a message at 250-427-1931.

Prasad says more of this type of fundraising will happen over the off season.

“We will be doing more things like this as we are looking to supply something to our community and not just stand there with our hand out,” he said. “We will be posting information about our golf tournament and have started the preliminary work for a firewood service. One thing for sure, you will being seeing us a whole lot more.”

And with increased need to fundraise comes more demand on the volunteers, so anyone who would like to help out with this long standing Kimberley tradition would be more than welcome.

”Possibly the most important thing we need to address is the need for more participation from community minded people. This organization takes a tremendous amount of work and it is nice to have that work divided up among several different people,” Prasad said. “Any one looking to volunteer can contact us through our website at www.kimberleydynamiters.net or by calling us at our telephone number (250)-427-1931.”

“We have been here for 79 years and look would like to be here for another 79.”