The almighty dollar played a key role in the success of the Georgetown Intermediate A Raiders from the late 1970s and early ‘80s and the 2010 Georgetown Hockey Heritage Award recipient helped drive the club’s fundraising machine.
Finn Poulstrup, 62, becomes the 33rd honouree of the Georgetown Hockey Heritage Council, in part for his money-making schemes, but also for his work as a builder in a number of other areas.
Along with helping structure the largest Jr. A hockey league in the world, he founded the Halton Hills Sports Museum and Resource Centre, began a fundraising oldtimers’ hockey tournament that has been going strong for a quarter century, and served as a minor hockey coach for several years.
Poulstrup’s introduction to the Intermediate Raiders came when he signed on to sponsor the club through his real estate company, Red Dot Realty.
He was soon recruited by Raiders’ then-director of fundraising Dave Kentner to become vice president of fundraising for the community-run organization.
“Once or twice a week I would sit down with Dave and we would talk about hockey and how we could raise more money,” Poulstrup recalled.
“He would throw 20 or 30 ideas up in the air and we’d spin them out. Then we’d pick two or three gems and try them. A lot of times these projects became quite lucrative and sometimes it would take a year or two to get it properly established, but we knew it would be worth it. We were able to do a lot of fundraising that you wouldn’t be able to do today because the laws have changed drastically.”
At first, he organized the puck shoot and his job grew into selling program ads, then a wide variety of Raider-emblazoned souvenirs. That evolved into special projects such as arranging stags, Boxing Day games, or raffles for a trip to Florida, but through trial and error some ideas didn’t come to fruition, such as the dance at the Oddfellows Hall that netted $2.12.
Another important role for Poulstrup was to approach Georgetown Chrysler owner Barry Whitworth every year to secure the dealership as the team’s title sponsor, which was like trying to pry tears out of a banker.
“Finn and I were an awful combination in that there was a competition between us. If I sold $500 worth of sponsorship, he would have to go out and get $500, plus $1, and I sold to a lot of people who thought they were getting away from him,” joked Kentner.
“But never did we ever put pressure on people to contribute to the hockey club. That was a Finn Poulstrup rule, that we use a softer sell and have fun doing it. He always had that edge of a sales manager where he could determine when we talked whether an idea was going to work or not. He quickly broke down the revenue and profit centres and got rid of things that didn’t make money.”
Game programs and the 50/50 draw were two other cash staples for the Raiders and Poulstrup was at the forefront of selling both. In most OHA rinks, the game program consisted of a lineup sheet and a couple of advertisements, but the Raiders produced an informative publication that sometimes had dozens of pages.
And he became known as Mr. 50/50.
“For many years I went up and down those stairs at the arena selling tickets and it was quite fun because you got to know a lot of people,” said the native of Denmark, who moved to Canada at age 2.
“You had to have a shtick for 50/50. You have to stand out in a crowd and smile or you won’t sell. If you put on a show you’ll sell lots of tickets.”
In their prime, the Raiders had a budget about $150,000 per season that attracted some former National Hockey Leaguers and minor pros to play here and had a staff of 50 to 60 volunteers to help with game day operations.
Kentner estimates that Poulstrup’s fundraising generated seven-figure revenue during his time with the team, which culminated with Georgetown’s Hardy Cup Canadian Intermediate A championship victory on home ice over the Quesnel, B.C. Kangaroos in 1982.
The problem with that success, however, was that other OHA teams couldn’t compete financially with the Raiders and the league folded later that year, ensuring the club would be the only Ontario representative to ever win the Hardy Cup.
“I remember walking out onto the ice just after we won, looking at the wonderful scenes of the fans in the stands and saying to Dave Kentner, ‘We’re never going to see this again.’”
Poulstrup became president in 1983 when the Raiders moved up to the OHA Senior A loop, but after a couple of years of financial uncertainty, with top-quality players harder to find and many teams folding, the local club ceased operations.
“We were looking at a situation where we might get halfway through the season and not have a league to play in.
“About $30,000 was owed to some of our longtime sponsors and we made a commitment to those people that we wanted to make sure they got paid. So we started an oldtimers’ tournament and it took two or three years, but those debts were paid off. This year was our 25th year of running the tournament and (Georgetown Hockey Heritage Council) we’ve also donated to charity organizations or minor hockey.”
Poulstrup was also president of the Georgetown Jr. B Raiders from 1992-96 and went on to become secretary and assistant to former Raider president Bob Hooper, who was commissioner during the restructuring of the Provincial Jr. A Hockey League. Both retired from those positions earlier this year.
During his tenure with the Raiders Poulstrup found time to coach sons Jake and Adam in minor hockey and for five years was an on-ice official as well.
He guided Georgetown’s Major B peewees to a Tri-County championship and repeated the feat two years later with the Major B bantams.
Most recently, Poulstrup was the founding chairman of the Halton Hills Sports Museum and Resource Centre, located in the upstairs room of the Mold-Masters SportsPlex. He helped raise more than $700,000 for the project, which  celebrated its official opening last month.