By / Darren Bayrack
Ice times for some minor hockey players will remain scarce as the global economic collapse hits home in southern Alberta.
Hockey Calgary had hoped to raise $5 million in private donations to build both indoor and outdoor refrigerated arenas over the next couple of years, but the organization is $3 million short of its target.
“The times, they’re certainly changing with respect to the economic outlook on the world scene out there and certainly the local scene hasn’t been overly favourable to us as far as funding commitments are concerned,” explains Perry Cavanagh, president of Hockey Calgary.
“The good news is, of course, that the cost of trades and materials is coming down accordingly. If we can get shovel into ground, we will be in a better position budget wise.”
Undaunted by the challenges, Hockey Calgary has sought out advice from a senior architectural company to come up with a hybrid arena concept that combines a traditional bricks and mortar arena with the rink-in-a-box concept. The so called rink-in-a-box is a more economical prefabricated arena that is trucked-in complete with a refrigeration plant, boards/glass and benches.
“We’re really excited about that,” said Cavanagh, noting that the hybrid rink meets all the City of Calgary building code requirements. “This new solution offers something uniquely better.
There is a little bit extra cost, it adds about 20 percent to the overall cost of the project but certainly is something that is high quality.”
The end result could be arenas with fairly simple structural covers, artificial ice, four dressing rooms and ice grooming machines. Amenities such as showers and washrooms would not be included in the arena structure itself, but might be next door at a community centre for example.
“You are very hard-pressed to find many bantam and below players that are showering at the rink anyway,” Cavanagh said. “You transition those age groups into that style of rink.”
The middle of the road — or hybrid rink — can be built for about $5 million, whereas a traditional single sheet arena generally costs between $10-15 million.
“We keep talking about thinking outside of the box and that really is to me a great, innovative solution,” said Cavanagh.
Hockey Calgary is currently working on gaining registered charity status and pushing forward assisting in the construction of both traditional and prefabricated rinks for minor hockey players. Cavanagh credits much of the momentum to three community meetings titled ‘Ice Summits’ that have brought stakeholders together to discuss the lack of available ice times for minor hockey players and other arena users such as figure skaters.
“We consider it just a wonderful success that the whole concept of the Ice Summit series was to bring awareness to the shortage, to get people to come up with innovative solutions,” Cavanagh said. “What we are seeing now is a lot of activity by a lot of different groups and individuals who are looking at what solutions they can provide us. That’s encouraging and we’re feeling very competent and comfortable with the outcome of the Summit series.”
A fourth meeting is expected at the conclusion of this minor hockey season. |