Klein: City Hall Locks Out Hockey Veteran After He Speaks Out — “This Is the Bullying Winnipeggers Are Tired Of”

WINNIPEG - Mayoral candidate Kevin Klein says the season-long closures of Terry Sawchuk Arena and the West Kildonan Memorial Community Centre arena, followed by the lockout of a longtime team president the day after he criticized the city, show a City Hall that has abandoned basic maintenance and now punishes people who speak up.

As reported by the Winnipeg Free Press, Barry Bonni, president of the River East Royal Knights and a fixture at Terry Sawchuk Arena for more than four decades, was locked out of his office the day after he told media the city had “dragged their feet” on inspections and repairs. Bonni, a Manitoba Hockey Hall of Famer who has used the building for 45 years, said he has always been given a key when locks were changed in the past. “They’re on the war path,” he told the Free Press. The city claims the lock change was only for safety while assessments continue and was “not intended to be punitive,” but Hockey Winnipeg’s executive director Ian McArton called the treatment of volunteers like Bonni “disappointing,” and Seven Oaks Minor Hockey Association vice-president Christian Taylor said it was “concerning” if it resulted from trying to shed light on the closure.

Klein has spent time in these arenas as a hockey referee and has watched the managed decline firsthand. “I have seen the managed decline of these facilities — just like we are seeing the managed decline of Winnipeg under Scott Gillingham,” he said. “Now a man who has given 45 years to hockey in that building is locked out the day after he tells the truth. That is bullying. That is City Hall treating the people who built our programs like the enemy.”

The closures themselves were predictable. Terry Sawchuk is shut for the season over structural problems with multiple glulam beams (one repaired last winter; eight to ten more now need work). West Kildonan is closed after inspections flagged issues with its gas-detection system, exhaust fans, and related equipment. Hundreds of hours of junior and minor hockey are gone; associations are scrambling and home games cancelled.

In 2022 City Council approved $8 million in provincial funding for arena repairs, including these facilities. The money was never properly spent. As recently as June 2026, a city staffer told Councillor Brian Mayes that work under the Arena Renewal Program “is limited by available resources, prioritization of projects (& emergencies changing priorities), and in some cases supply chain issues,” and that the city was still “in the process of putting together a plan and schedule.” Months later the rinks are closed and a longtime user is locked out for speaking out.

Klein contrasted the neglect with major spending elsewhere: millions poured into the St. James Civic Centre in Gillingham’s former area, and a multi-phase south Winnipeg recreation campus with Phase 1 alone exceeding $100 million in combined funding. “The south and St. James get big new projects. North-side arenas that already exist, that council already funded, get ignored until they fail — and then the people who point it out get locked out,” Klein said.

This is the pattern Klein has highlighted throughout the campaign. He has pledged to restore an independent City Hall ombudsman so residents, businesses, and volunteers who feel bullied or ignored have a place to go that is not controlled by the same administration. “I don’t like bullies, and I will not tolerate taxpayers being treated that way,” Klein has said. “City Hall works for the people of Winnipeg, not the other way around.”

As mayor, he would require regular, proactive maintenance on every existing arena and community centre so problems are fixed before seasons are lost, and he would treat facilities in every part of the city as essential community assets. “Families in the north deserve the same reliable rinks as everyone else. Volunteers who give decades of their lives should not be punished for telling the truth. Better days are ahead for Winnipeg with change that makes sense.”

“Families in North Kildonan, West Kildonan, and across the north deserve the same reliable facilities as everyone else,” Klein said. “Better days are ahead for Winnipeg with change that makes sense—starting with keeping the rinks we already have open, safe, and available for the kids who use them.”