By / Darren Bayrack
Looking to ease pressure on Calgary’s short supply of ice times, Ice Summit III was held at the Don Hartman Sportsplex on Oct. 7 and things are looking up for local hockey players.
Rink patrons can look forward to an additional 14 sheets of ice in the coming years because of new arenas and expansion projects in the works. There are also as many as six so called rink-in-a-box arenas that are close to getting the green light, said Perry Cavanagh, president of Hockey Calgary.
“Some significant progress has been made in the area of the relationship with the City of Calgary in terms of identifying the need and we now have a solid strategic plan that we worked very hard on in cooperation with the Calgary Sport Council,” Cavanagh explained.
The rink-in-a-box is a trucked-in prefabricated arena complete with a refrigeration plant, boards/glass and benches. These innovative arenas can be enclosed and extras such as simple dressing rooms can be added for a total cost of about $1.5 million, much less than the minimum $10 million it costs to build a traditional bricks and mortar arena.
New arenas will be built at locations such as Canada Olympic Park, South Fish Creek, the Family Leisure centres, the Edge hockey school west of the city and expansion will add a sheet of ice to the Centennial Twin Arenas. These projects will increase the ice available to minor hockey by more than 25 per cent.
“We are seeing decision makers thinking, with strategic planning supported literature and data, that they need to get these darn things built,” Cavanagh said.
While the new projects are good news, Southland Hockey Association President Jill Cameron said ice times are still scarce in some regions of Calgary. “We were hoping to hear about more ice in some of the southern parts of the city,” said the veteran of all three Ice Summit meetings and who has four sons minor hockey.
The association has addressed the ice shortage the past couple of years by encouraging coaches to integrate inventive training ideas into their practice schedules. “To alleviate some of what’s been going on with the ice we have been encouraging our coaches at Southland to take the kids out even on football fields and soccer fields,” Cameron explained. “Dry land (training) and even positional play instead of wasting the time on the ice.”
Peewee player Cameron Anklewich said that two years ago his team resorted to conducting drills on an outdoor rink in -25 C weather. “It was really cold, but we still went out and did the practice,” he said.
Rob Kerr of the Fan 960 once again acted as host of the Ice Summit that was attended by about a dozen stakeholders. |
