On the Thursday, May 7, 2026, episode of The Excerpt podcast: Murry Gunty’s story goes beyond that of a hockey dad supporting youth sports. It’s about a businessman who built a hockey empire, claiming profits were reinvested to grow the game. But a nine‑month USA TODAY investigation found that his business practices have raised concerns among legal experts, including potential abuse of monopoly power.
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Dana Taylor:
The story of Murry Gunty is about more than a hockey dad who took an interest in youth sports. It's about a businessman who saw an opportunity and cashed in on it. But a nine-month investigation by USA TODAY found that how Gunty built and ran his hockey empire has raised serious concerns among legal experts about abusing monopoly power and using nonprofit teams for private gain.
Hello and welcome to USA TODAY's, The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Thursday, May 7th, 2026. Joining me now for more on that investigation is USA TODAY Investigative Reporter Kenny Jacoby. It's good to speak with you, Kenny.
Kenny Jacoby:
It's good to be here.
Dana Taylor:
Kenny, first, tell me a little about Murry Gunty and his company, Black Bear.
Kenny Jacoby:
Murry Gunty is a hockey dad at heart, and he's also a businessman. Before he started consolidating the ice rink industry, he had a three decade-long career in private equity where he was known to buy businesses on the brink of financial collapse, inject them with some cash, streamline the operations, and turn them around and sell them to other businesses at a profit. Around 2016, he started to get into the youth hockey business.
Dana Taylor:
So let's stay in the time before he came to dominate youth hockey and look at one of several public controversies that have led some to argue that Gunty's unfit to lead youth sports. What happened with his company, SFCA, Inc.?
Kenny Jacoby:
So back in 2008, one of Murry Gunty's private equity company's subsidiaries, called SFCA, Inc., bought the assets of a company called Simplicity, which made low cost bassinets for babies. And about four months after his company bought Simplicity, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission recalled a lot of the cribs and bassinets that Murry's company had purchased. They had discovered a fault in the bassinets, specifically that there was a gap between the mattress and the side rail that allowed infants' bodies to slip through. And the federal agency had received multiple reports that babies had died as a result of these bassinets.
So in August 2008, the federal government recalled the bassinets and urged families and caregivers to stop using them. But in their public notice that they issued, they criticized Murry's company for refusing to cooperate with the government's recall.
Dana Taylor:
And I know you asked him about that.
Kenny Jacoby:
I did ask him about that, and he said he didn't have all the details in front of him.
Dana Taylor:
During your conversation with Gunty, you noted that the Chicago Tribune did a huge investigation into these bassinets, one that won a Pulitzer Prize. What did that investigation find?
Kenny Jacoby:
The investigation by the Chicago Tribune centered largely on the lax regulatory efforts of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, but it found specifically that this company, SFCA, Inc. had continued to distribute the bassinets after the government had issued the recall notice. Specifically, SFCA had said in response to the Chicago Tribune's investigation that it was not responsible for these bassinets, because they had been manufactured prior to SFCA's acquisition of its assets.
But the Chicago Tribune found that SFCA continued to distribute them. And one of its reporters went to a retail store and bought one of these bassinets, and it had a shipping label on it that showed that SFCA was the sender. So it sort of refuted SFCA's claim that it was not responsible for these bassinets, because it did continue to distribute them despite some of these safety issues.
Dana Taylor:
As Gunty pivoted to turning youth hockey into a lucrative business venture, a different controversy emerged. This one centered on how some local ice rinks and teams operate. One of the key issues involves the relationship between nonprofit and for profit entities. Can you explain what happened here?
Kenny Jacoby:
So one of the very first hockey organizations that Murry's long-term investment firm invested in was called Team Maryland. And that was a nonprofit, competitive youth hockey club in Maryland, which Murry happened to coach and his son happened to play for. Murry went into business with the president of Team Maryland. Together, they bought two ice rinks in Maryland. They also expanded Team Maryland to add two junior hockey league franchises, which is where 16 to 21-year-old players play essentially full-time in hopes that it nets them a college scholarship offer.
So as Black Street, which is Murry's company, partnered with Team Maryland, Team Maryland also started paying Black Street's companies more and more money. And this creates sort of a conflict because it's a nonprofit that is paying a for-profit company. Eventually, Murry's company, Black Street, took over Team Maryland entirely in 2023. And at that point, one of Black Street's employees actually joined Team Maryland's board.
So you have this situation where the board members of a nonprofit are also employees of the for-profit who it's paying. Team Maryland rented ice from the rinks that Murry and Team Maryland's president bought. So when we spoke to a nonprofit expert about this, they said that this raised concerns about using charitable dollars for private gain. And I asked Murry Gunty about this, and here's what he said.
Murry Gunty:
I think that there are a lot of ways to look at nonprofits in youth sports. I think it's a fairly common structure that you see 501(c)(3)s in youth sports. It's a legacy structure that I don't fully understand. It's not the way we run our organization. Our organization, with the exception of Team Maryland, I can't think of another club that is inside of a 501(c)(3). We typically just own the clubs directly. So this is something that seems to be industry standard. I can't explain what the origin of it is. All of our financials are disclosed out in the public. You can see everything we do, and so I don't feel like it's a conflict of interest.
Dana Taylor:
Before we get into what hockey parents and aspiring players shared with you about their experiences, we need to understand how Gunty gained ownership of the ice and the teams that depend on it. Can you give an example of how these deals came together?
Kenny Jacoby:
So for Black Bear, buying up ice rinks was the easy part. A lot of rink owners were more than willing to sell, especially at the turn of the pandemic. And Black Bear was able to buy them for just a few million dollars each for the most part. What then happened was now that Black Bear controlled the ice, it used that as leverage to take over the teams inside them. And in some cases, it bought youth teams outright, and in some cases, it forced them out and replaced them with its own in-house, for-profit teams. In some instances, Black Bear offered to buy teams from nonprofit organizations for $1.00.
And this happened in one case that I reported on in Pittsburgh where a nonprofit association that had rented ice from the Pittsburgh Ice Arena for several years received an offer from Black Bear to buy its teams. When they said they didn't want to sell this nonprofit's teams to Black Bear for $1.00, they realized that it wasn't so much an offer as it was a demand. And when they refused to sell, Black Bear kicked its teams out of its rink.
Dana Taylor:
And let's turn to the parents and youth players themselves. What were the primary concerns they raised when you spoke with them?
Kenny Jacoby:
The primary concerns from parents that I spoke to were that Black Bear is making the sport inaccessible and unnecessarily expensive. A phrase that came up a lot was, "nickel and diming." And that's because parents in Black Bear's rinks are forced to buy a lot of products they don't necessarily want. Once Black Bear took over enough teams, it started its own league that those teams then joined. Parents would have to pay league fees to be part of that league. Teams in its leagues play in Black Bear's tournaments, which are called Defender Tournaments. And in some cases, tournament rules require them to book hotels, rooms at hotels they don't necessarily want or need if they live a certain distance from the rink. And if they don't want to travel, they have to pay even more money to stream their kids' games from home using Black Bear's proprietary streaming service, Black Bear TV, which charges $15.00 per game or hundreds of dollars for an annual subscription.
So all these costs add up in addition to hockey already being one of the most expensive sports in the country. I spoke to many parents who said that they spent several thousand dollars when you add it all up on their kids' hockey seasons.
Dana Taylor:
Then what did they share with you about how the facilities were run?
Kenny Jacoby:
A lot of the parents described maintenance issues at Black Bear rinks that went unresolved for a long time. They described electric issues, plumbing issues, issues with the ice, and in one case, an ice rink in Michigan, which lacked heat during the very cold, frigid winter for what they said was several months. Here's what Murry Gunty said about that.
Murry Gunty:
We have 46 ice rinks, and once in a while things break and it takes a little while for us to fix them. Fortunately, it hasn't happened very often in our buildings, but sometimes stuff breaks and it takes a while for us to get supplies.
Dana Taylor:
If parents are dissatisfied, what choices do they have here? Is there anywhere else for their kids to play?
Kenny Jacoby:
So often, there are some other rinks in the markets that Black Bear enters. But the thing about hockey is there just aren't that many ice rinks in the whole country. And there's a lot more demand for ice from hockey teams and players than there is supply. And so, when Black Bear buys rinks in a certain market, it sort of knows that it's going to be able to fill the rinks just because there are so many players who depend on that ice to play. Even if it doesn't have a majority of the market, it has enough to know that it's going to get a certain amount of customers no matter what.
And so, Black Bear will say that because of the other rinks near to its rinks, that parents do have choices, but they don't necessarily get to choose which teams their kids make when they try out. And so, there's going to be a certain fraction of them that have to play in Black Bear's rink almost no matter what.
Dana Taylor:
You also looked at franchises sold by Black Bear to older teens and young adults who are aspiring to play at higher levels of hockey. Those programs charge fees that are supposed to cover travel, lodging, food, a guaranteed number of games, the whole nine. What did you uncover when you looked into one of those franchises?
Kenny Jacoby:
So Murry Gunty in 2024 became the commissioner of the United States Premier Hockey League, which is a junior hockey league that has dozens of teams around the country. When Murry became commissioner, he sold several franchises to a husband and wife named Christopher and Raya Reeves. Christopher and Raya Reeves had a long history of lawsuits back in North Carolina where they were sued more than three dozen times for failing to meet financial obligations and being accused of shortchanging their clients and banks and homeowners' associations in connection with a series of failed real estate investments.
They didn't have any experience running hockey programs, but press releases we obtained show that Murry sold them at least eight junior hockey league franchises. And during the 2025, '26 season, these franchises fell apart just weeks into the season. There were dozens of players who had paid thousands of dollars for their spots on the teams. They had moved across the country to be there. They ended up in unstable living conditions. Some said that they bounced around to different Airbnbs, were sleeping on the couches, on the kitchen floor. There was very little food provided. And then very suddenly about six weeks into the season, the team owners folded the teams. So they were left with little recourse, no teams to play for, and not much to show for the thousands of dollars they'd spent.
Dana Taylor:
Going back to your sit-down with Gunty, he frequently pointed to his organization's growth as evidence of both success and approval from hockey families, right?
Kenny Jacoby:
That's right. Yeah. A lot of Murry's answers to our questions, he sort of pivoted back to his company's accomplishments. And that was one of the main things he cited was that Black Bear's participation rates are growing at a faster rate than the national average. And he used this to show that parents do have choices and that they are choosing Black Bear. I asked him about Black Bear's success and accomplishments, and here's what he said.
Murry Gunty:
We grew this past year, 9% player participation. USA Hockey publishes statistics every single year. They haven't published this year's yet. Last year, hockey grew by 1.7%. We grew over four times the national average. It's because we have a culture of extraordinary people, extraordinary coaches, and I feel like our customers and our hockey families get to vote every single year how they feel about Black Bear.
Dana Taylor:
Kenny, Gunty has now resigned as CEO of Black Bear, though his private investment firm still owns it. What do the youth hockey community members you spoke with hope to see happen now?
Kenny Jacoby:
I think the parents and players and coaches and business owners who I spoke to, more than anything, want to see some accountability for Black Bear. They feel like they are the company's biggest stakeholders as the people who paid to be in its rinks, and that Black Bear hasn't taken its concerns into consideration. I know that, for one, families who had players in the United States Premier Hockey League whose seasons fell apart, they're hoping to get some of the money back that they lost.
And shortly after I interviewed Murry, the United States Premier Hockey League announced that it would refund players' league fees, which were a few hundred dollars per player that year, but I still think they're hoping to see a bit more accountability for everything that their players lost during that season. And I think more generally, they feel like Black Bear has put profits over kids' and families' interests. And so, they're hoping to see some policy changes that take their interest more into consideration.
Dana Taylor:
Kenny Jacoby as an investigative reporter for USA TODAY. Thank you so much for sharing your investigation with us here on The Excerpt, Kenny.
Kenny Jacoby:
Thank you for the opportunity.
Dana Taylor:
Thanks to our Senior Producer Kaely Monahan for her production assistance. Our executive producer is Laura Beatty. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending a note to Podcasts@USAToday.com. Thanks for listening. I'm Dana Taylor. I'll be back tomorrow morning with another episode of USA TODAY's The Excerpt.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How one hockey dad cashed in on youth sports | The Excerpt
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