A nine-month investigation by USA TODAY found former Black Bear Sports Group CEO Murry Gunty used his private investment firm to rapidly purchase ice rinks and teams across the Northeast and Midwest — including one in Brighton— then leveraged that control to steer families into a costly ecosystem of leagues, tournaments and fees.
Black Bear Sports Group purchased Kensington Valley Ice House in Brighton Township in February 2024 — becoming Biggby Coffee Ice Cube Brighton. The company promised equipment and building upgrades, more tournaments and "first class" service.
What was uncovered by USA TODAY?
USA TODAY found the result of Black Bear's takeover includes higher prices, fewer choices and growing concern from legal experts that one company is consolidating power over a sport long rooted in local nonprofits, turning youth hockey into a pay-to-play pipeline where families must spend hundreds more each year or risk being shut out.
The newspaper's reporting — based on interviews with more than 80 parents, players, coaches, rink operators and current and former employees, along with thousands of pages of records — found the company's business model is reshaping youth hockey from a network of community-based nonprofits into a vertically integrated, for-profit system with fewer checks on how money flows.
Those changes are also raising deeper questions: whether nonprofit teams are being used to feed private businesses, whether families are being forced into buying bundled services they don’t want, and whether one company now has outsized control over who gets access to the sport and at what price.
“We’re all paying so much money, and each year, they take away more and more,” said Stephanie Kurzweil, a hockey parent who, in 2023, paid $4,600 for her nine-year-old son’s spot on a team owned by Black Bear in New Jersey. That doesn’t include hundreds more for hotels, travel, uniforms, equipment and a tryout fee.
Black Bear, in less than a decade, has grown into the single largest owner-operator of ice rinks in the country, with 47 facilities across 11 states. The business owns not only rinks but hundreds of youth teams inside them; the leagues, tournaments and showcases they compete in; even the streaming software parents use to watch their children’s games — and it bills families separately for each.
Gunty defended his company in a 90-minute interview with USA TODAY, dismissing many criticisms as coming from a vocal minority of customers. He said Black Bear has saved struggling ice rinks, grown participation in the sport faster than the national average and made hockey more fun and accessible. To be sure, many rinks were in dire financial straits when Black Bear purchased them and might not have stayed open otherwise.
“I just hope everybody knows that I come from a really good place in trying to deliver a great experience for our families,” said Gunty, who frequently answered questions by pivoting to his company's accomplishments. His relaxed, friendly demeanor contrasted at times with that of his crisis communications consultant, Evan Nierman, who sat nearby.
“I believe that the vast majority of our customers love our coaches. They love what we’re doing in our buildings. They love the people they associate with,” Gunty said. “If they don’t like what we’re doing, they can leave.”
Gunty demonstrated a pattern of unethical business practices over a private-equity career spanning three decades, USA TODAY’s investigation found. His and his companies' alleged conflicts of interest, self-dealing and refusal to cooperate with a government recall of dangerous cribs prompted two federal agencies to rebuke him and his companies. The findings call into question the extent to which Black Bear's leaders have prioritized profits over children's and families' interests.
The Michigan Attorney General's Office, in fact, recentlylaunched an investigationinto potential anticompetitive business practices in youth hockey, with a focus on Black Bear. AG spokesperson Danny Wimmer said the department is "looking into this matter out of concern for the risk of consumer harm — including higher prices and reduced service quality — that can arise from diminished access to community and recreational services."
In an emailed statement addressing the state investigation, Nierman pointed to Black Bear's ownership of less than 10% of rinks in Michigan, ice rental contracts with third parties, and participation growth as evidence that families have choices and are choosing Black Bear.
Days after USA TODAY asked to interview him, Gunty announced his resignation as CEO of Black Bear, citing health and family reasons. His investment firm, however, remains in charge, and the brand's new CEO — Kevin Kuby — is an executive from Blackstreet.
Why are so many ice rinks owned by Black Bear?
Over four short years, Black Bear purchased 14 rinks in Maryland, Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut — in most cases for less than $5 million each, according to county property records.
When the pandemic shuttered in-person events across the country, crippling the ice rink industry, Black Bear’s acquisition pace accelerated. It scooped up 33 more rinks over the next six years, more than doubling the company's footprint.
Some rinks were deep in debt or in foreclosure. Others were profitable businesses in established hockey markets. Many rink operators were more than willing to sell.
Across a total of 25 years, no one had ever offered to purchase Mark Schaffer’s two ice rinks in southeast Michigan, he told USA TODAY. So, when Gunty called in 2023, he listened.
Even in a hockey hotbed, running an ice rink was difficult work — a largely seasonal business with high energy, maintenance, labor, tax and insurance costs. Schaffer wasn't sure another buyer would come along.
He wondered how a Maryland company would fare managing the daily demands of ice rinks in Michigan, but he didn’t ask many questions during a 20-minute meeting — nor did Gunty.
“I had a feeling it probably wasn’t going to go well,” Schaffer said.
Schaffer sold one of his two rinks, Kensington Valley Ice House of Brighton, to Black Bear in February 2024. The deed doesn’t list the sales price, but an affiliate of Black Bear took out a $12.6 million mortgage on that property and three others in Michigan in 2025.
Soon after taking over, Black Bear raised hourly ice rates for the Kensington Valley Hockey Association, a youth nonprofit that's rented ice time for years, from $320 to $370 an hour — according to board member Caryn Michalak.
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Black Bear threatened to raise that price even higher, she said, unless the association agreed to switch to the brand's official apparel provider, from which the company receives kickbacks. Black Bear — which denied making such a threat — also required the association to affix the logo of corporate sponsor Biggby Coffee to players’ jerseys.
Despite the nonprofit spending $925,000 on ice rental in 2025-26, conditions at the rink deteriorated under Black Bear, according to Michalak, who briefly worked at the rink after the purchase. In addition to frequent plumbing and electricity issues, she said, the building didn't have heat for several months during the wintertime, leaving families freezing during their children's games and practices.
In February 2026, Black Bear offered to purchase the association's teams for $1, according to a copy of the proposal reviewed by USA TODAY. If the board doesn’t accept, Michalak fears the company will kick the nonprofit’s teams out.
“We push all their programs, we put their names on their jerseys, and it still isn’t enough,” she said.
Gunty told USA TODAY that Black Bear won't boot the association’s teams from the rink, adding his company tries to raise prices in line with the nationwide inflation rate — 2.7% in 2025 — but that many rising costs, such as utilities and insurance, are beyond the business' control. He said he believes heating issues were fixed within weeks, not months.
“I felt terrible, and we tried to jump on it as quickly as we could,” he said. “We feel bad that people were cold in that rink, but that problem has been resolved.”
Schaffer said he regrets selling to Black Bear.
“Unfortunately,” Schaffer said, “I think parents and kids are paying the price.”
'They see dollar signs'
What concerns antitrust experts about Black Bear isn’t so much the consolidation of ice rinks — it’s the way the company has used its dominance in the rink market to gain an unfair advantage in other markets critical to the sport’s infrastructure.
As the company bought rinks, it also took control of many of the teams inside them. Some, it purchased outright. In other cases, longstanding local organizations were squeezed out and replaced with in-house, for-profit teams.
Once it controlled enough teams, Black Bear withdrew players from many of the community-based leagues they'd long competed in and started for-profit leagues. The depleted competition in the old leagues led other teams to follow suit.
Black Bear also started Defender Hockey Tournaments, whose events take place almost exclusively at company-owned rinks. As is increasingly standard practice across youth sports, tournaments under Defender have strict “stay-to-play” rules, which require participants who live more than 60 or 75 miles from the host rinks to book rooms at designated hotels from which the company receives kickbacks. Those who flout the rules face disqualification from the events without a refund, according to a hotel policy.
Family members who don’t wish to travel can pay extra to watch their children play through Black Bear’s proprietary live streaming service, Black Bear TV. The price is $14.99 per game or up to $320 for an annual subscription, plus additional fees to stream junior league games.
A behemoth three-day tournament in Pennsylvania and New Jersey in January 2026 reflected the company’s enormous influence over the sport in the region. Black Bear runs the tournament company, all six rinks that hosted games and 76 of the 114 participating teams.
“It just feels like Black Bear is slowly becoming a monopoly,” said Chris Boughman, whose son's team played in the tournament. “It shouldn’t be at the expense of kids.”
The costs aren’t purely financial. The demanding schedules in Black Bear leagues — roughly 50 games over six months — force players to specialize at a young age, which medical experts say contributes to overuse injuries and burnout. Boughman’s son used to play football as a quarterback, he said, but quit to focus on hockey.
Gunty insists Black Bear is not a monopoly. He said the company only buys rinks in areas where there are competing rinks within a 30-minute drive and reinvests "almost all" profits back into the business.
“We are a small piece of the overall hockey market in the United States,” Gunty said. “We are required every single year to deliver a great product to our customers, and we have been fortunate that we're growing in states where hockey is declining.”
The hallmark of a monopoly is a company’s ability to raise prices without losing many customers. That’s exactly what Black Bear did in 2025.
Between seasons, Black Bear raised prices for 142 of 209 in-house teams whose prices were listed online. The hikes, usually increases of $100 to $400 per player for a full season, were highest for some of the company's youngest clients: 9- to 12-year-olds.
All those costs add up for families like Dan Keel’s. He said he paid close to $5,000 in tuition alone for his eight-year-old son’s season with the Mercer Chiefs — plus hundreds more for travel, hotels, equipment, league fees and Black Bear TV.
“They don’t care about the kids and their development,” Keel said. “They see dollar signs.”
Kenny Jacoby is an investigative reporter for USA TODAY who uncovers issues in sports, higher education and law enforcement. Contact him by email atkjacoby@usatoday.com.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:USA TODAY investigates new owner of Kensington Ice House in Brighton
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