Former OPP officer leading GTHL investigation of Markham Majors team finances

The Greater Toronto Hockey League (GTHL) has commissioned an independent investigation of its Markham Majors organization following allegations made by a hockey parent that player fees and fundraising money raised for one of the Majors’ AAA teams has not been properly accounted for.

Retired Ontario Provincial Police officer Keith Lawson confirmed to TSN that he has been hired as a third-party investigator by the GTHL to investigate a number of allegations, including those related to the Majors’ finances.

“I’m investigating a number of cases right now for the GTHL and I’m fairly busy. I’m not done my work,” Lawson said. “I’m basically a fact finder and I will be reporting to the GTHL. I’m not in a position to discuss it.”

The GTHL has told TSN that it is investigating multiple allegations that some teams and the non-profit organizations that run them have been inappropriately bought and sold.

Former NHL player Akim Aliu and his partner Jim Nikopoulos told TSN that the president of the North York Rangers organization informed them during a meeting in July of 2021 that it would cost at least $1 million for them to buy the organization’s AAA teams.

Aliu said another AAA organization director offered to sell his club for $3.6 million. He also said he has been briefed on how one group of investors used a shell company to complete the purchase of a GTHL organization. Another hockey parent whose son plays in the GTHL also described to TSN his negotiations in 2021 to buy a 25 per cent stake in a AAA organization for $1 million.

In the weeks since Aliu’s allegations were made public, more hockey parents in the Greater Toronto Area have contacted TSN to discuss the business of minor hockey.

One parent told TSN he has complained to his son’s Under-13 AAA team because parents have not been told how the team's $221,000 budget has been spent. Another parent who now sponsors a AAA team said he contacted an organization president and asked about a spot for his son on a team. The parent said the president responded that he could “lease” a team for five years in exchange for $250,000 in cash, choosing both the team’s coaches and players.

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Aaron Groskopf, whose son, Noah, played for coach Terry Fitzpatrick this season on the Majors’ AAA Under-12 team, said the organization has refused repeated requests to provide an itemized breakdown of how the team’s money has been spent.

Groskopf filed a formal complaint about the Majors with GTHL executive director Scott Oakman on March 3. In an email to Oakman that was copied to Majors general manager Randy Jacobs, GTHL president Don West and board member Karl Subban, Groskopf wrote that while the Majors had agreed to provide families with a detailed mid-season accounting, it was never provided despite several requests.

“From the limited pieces of information we have been able to obtain, there are several questions that arise and remain unanswered,” Groskopf wrote. Another parent on the team corroborated Groskopf’s claim that financial information has not been provided to families.

A week after Groskopf’s email to Oakman, Jacobs wrote in a March 10 email to parents on the Under-12 team that Fitzpatrick had been fired.

Aaron Groskopf Yourk

“There was a concern raised by a parent in respect of the budget, and some of the things you have referenced were also brought to our attention,” Jacobs wrote in a statement to TSN. “The manager held an early meeting with the families to confirm the sanctity of the budget and finances of the team, and we conducted our own independent review and were also able to confirm to the parents that everything was in order with respect to the financial side of the team. In fact, this parent group will be getting a refund at the end of the season because of how well the budget was managed.”

Fitzpatrick told TSN in an interview that a dispute with a parent whose child plays on the team led to his firing.

“I was fired because I hadn't shown up for a few practices in a row because I was worried about my safety,” Fitzpatrick said. “I was worried about my safety because of a parent on the team who was verbally attacking me.”

Groskopf is one of several hockey parents who agreed to share documents, emails and text messages about the Majors’ finances.

Groskopf said this is his family’s first season with the Majors. His son tried out for the Majors’ AAA Under 12 team on Sept. 13, 2022. Noah was offered a roster spot the same day and when he accepted, Groskopf said he was given an information package that detailed the team’s $130,900 budget for the 2022-23 season.

The Majors AAA Under-12 team raised $115,600 by charging each of its 17 players $6,800. Families also agreed to fundraise $900 each to generate another $15,300. The biggest expense listed on the 2022-23 budget was the team’s $47,900 club player fee.

The team also planned to spend $24,000 on development, which included clinics, instructors and coaching fees, the budget said. (While that development expenditure was supposed to provide for payments to a paid assistant coach, the team did not hire one.) Another $4,200 was to go to miscellaneous expenses, including pucks and medical supplies, the budget said.

While the Majors’ pre-season budget said the team would spend $19,200 on practice ice, team manager Jennifer Silva indicated in a Nov. 29 email to parents that only $315 had been spent on ice rentals. Six weeks later, on Jan. 12, the manager reported $17,405 had been spent to date on ice rentals, Groskopf said.

He said families then began to demand answers from the organization about how money was being spent.

As more questions were asked, Groskopf said Silva shut down an account on Flipgive.com on Jan. 25, a website many teams use to fundraise from the family and friends of players. The Majors have not provided families with details about how much money was raised using that website or explained what has been done with the funds, Groskopf said.

Groskopf also alleges that Silva has used her personal bank account in connection with team fundraising. Personal accounts are not supposed to be used for team transactions, Oakman wrote.

“Although [our] rule doesn’t explicitly state that team bank accounts are required, it clearly is the intention,” he wrote. “There may be circumstances in which individuals, including a manager, may need to make a purchase for the team that would require reimbursement (e.g. pucks or water.) Beyond that, deposits of team funds and expenses should be through the team bank account…That would be the position I would take, and I would expect any discipline committee reviewing such a case would come to the same determination.”

Groskopf said team financial statements provided to families in early February indicated the Majors had spent $6,000 on Aug. 4-5 for a pre-season training camp.

“How are we spending that much money for a training camp that supposedly happens a month before the team had tryouts and was picked?” Groskopf said.

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Emotions finally boiled over during a Feb. 8 meeting between parents and team staff. Groskopf acknowledges that during that meeting he used inappropriate language.

“I was so upset with other parents,” he said. “They had been whispering, talking for weeks about how angry they were at the lack of transparency about where money was going? I stood up in that meeting and asked other parents, ‘Don’t you want to see the financial receipts?’ Everybody just looked at the ground. I called one parent a snake and I definitely should not have said that.”

Two York Region police officers showed up at the arena and questioned Groskopf about what had happened during the meeting. He was not charged with any criminal offence.

The following day, Oakman advised Groskopf in an email that he was suspended, and wouldn’t be allowed at any GTHL rink. (Groskopf said that sanction was lifted after two weeks.)

On Feb. 13, as questions about team finances continued to be posted on the Majors’ TeamSnap account (TeamSnap is a website used by amateur sports teams for schedule keeping and group messaging), the Majors also shut down that account.

“The time has come I believe to shut down TeamSnap and go back to the old fashion [sic] way of emailing parents, as TeamSnap is no longer being used for what it is intended for,” Silva wrote in a Feb. 13 email to parents.

Silva declined to comment.

Two weeks later, Jacobs sent an email to parents to say concerns about team finances had been investigated and that he was satisfied everything was in order.

“We wanted to bring up an update on the extensive financial review we agreed to conduct that has now concluded after comparing all supporting documentation to the bank statement,” Jacobs wrote in his Feb. 28 email to staff and parents. “We were able to reconcile all the transactions to our complete satisfaction.”

One aspect of Lawson’s ongoing investigation has been to scrutinize what the team has done with the rights to the practice ice it hasn’t used, Groskopf said.

The Majors Under-12 team had practices on Wednesday nights from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. and Saturday mornings from 9 a.m. to 10:30 am, prime time slots, he said. It’s typical for teams to sell ice time it cannot use, including when teams are in tournaments. He said that the Majors’ financial statement do not indicate that any of the team’s unused ice was ever sold, with the money returning to the team.

Despite the infighting, Groskopf said he doesn’t want to pull his son out of the program.

“This was my son’s first time playing AAA and he earned that spot,” Groskopf said. “For all of the problems between parents, the locker room is still a positive place for the kids... They didn't win a regular season game all year and still these kids were supportive of one another. There were moments where my son saw the good side of hockey.”

The Majors season ended on March 19. Groskopf said his son is trying out for new teams in the GTHL.