The municipality is promising a smooth transition as it prepares to temporarily remove the ice from two arenas in Chatham-Kent, despite some concerns from local ice user groups.
On Monday night, council voted in favour of converting Erickson Arena in Chatham and Bothwell Arena into a multipurpose facility to accommodate pickleball, indoor soccer, volleyball and ball hockey, from December 2020 to March 2021.
Municipal staff made the recommendation in hopes of making the arena facilities more financially viable. However, the decision has sparked questions from user groups of the two arenas who have already paid for ice time throughout the winter.
Julie McIntyre, president of the Bothwell Skating Club, said she expects to get some questions from concerned parents over the next few days.
"There are so many restrictions with kids on the ice. You can only have a maximum of 25 children. Most skating clubs are already full to capacity. I'm not really sure where we're going to send our skaters to skate," she said.
Manager of Parks and Open Spaces Jeff Bray said that the municipality will be working with the user groups, consulting with them about schedule changes and providing them with all the possible options.
According to the staff report that went to council before the vote, current ice rentals in Chatham-Kent have declined to a point where all ice requests could be accommodated in six of the municipality's 10 arenas. Bray said finding ice times for the user groups of Erickson Arena Bothwell Arena will ultimately not be a problem.
"We have one user group [in Bothwell] that's done this month, so that's not an issue. The other user group is the Chatham Girls Hockey and we hope to accommodate them at a Chatham rink. The other user group is the figure skating group. I want to work with them to see if we can find a solution for them in the interim," explained Bray. "This is just a one-season deal and I know for some people it's an issue getting around, but were hoping for one season they can be accommodated at either Dresden or Ridgetown."
Chatham is currently down one arena with repairs underway at Thames Campus, which has had the ice removed. However, Bray said the repairs are set to be done by the end of November in time for the repurposing and anyone who booked at Erickson Arena will likely be relocated to Thames Campus.
"The repurposing all hinges on when the repairs are done," he explained. "So when the repairs are done, we'll start making ice. When the ice is made we'll start removing the ice out of Erickson so no one will be displaced... User groups will be consulted as to the times that we're looking at. There will be other options like maybe Memorial Arena as well."
For Carl Herder, president of the Kent Minor Hockey Association, the idea of switching to Thames Campus is worrisome, especially for the younger players. According to Herder, children under nine have played at Erickson for a majority of the league's 54 years, mainly because of its smaller ice pad size compared to Thames Campus.
"I guess it just doesn't make sense to us that they would, halfway through the season, decide to take the ice out of Erickson and move it to Thames," he said.
Herder also raised concerns about how much further families will have to travel to accommodate the new locations.
"Yeah, travel right now is good, but wait until the winter sets in and they have to be at the arenas by 4:30 or 5 [p.m.]. They're just not going to make it, so they won't sign up," said Herder. "If we lose another hundred kids on top of the 25 to 200 we already lost, we won't be able to play hockey at all. We've already budgeted a deficit."
Herder said the because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the last nine months in the sports world have been turned upside down. With recreational activities put on hold at the start of the pandemic in March, players were allowed back on the ice in early October and Herder said the Kent Minor Hockey Association made the decision to split the season into two halves.
"We took registration for the first half of the year and we probably lost 25 per cent of our normal registration," he said. "Our second registration for the January 1 start is just starting now. But those numbers are very low."
While Herder questions the future of the hockey season, those in Bothwell are questioning what the decision will mean for the future of the arena itself.
During the debate on Monday, East Kent Councillor Steve Pinsonneault urged his fellow councillors to vote against the repurposing, claiming that it would have a crippling effect on Bothwell Arena and the community.
McIntyre said she echoed those fears that this decision would mean the end of the facility.
"This is a really big fear," she said. "I'm afraid it won't open again next year, their excuse will be that the machinery isn't working up to snuff and it will be too expensive to have it start up again next September. That's a real fear for me."
Both Herder and McIntyre said they wished that the municipality had consulted with the user groups before the decision was made.
Bray said he understands the concerns from residents but is reminding people that the repurposing is only temporary.
"I can't stress enough that this is a trial," he said. "A lot of people think we have an ulterior motive here but I think with the pandemic, it's given us an opportunity to see how viable this can be."
Other residents have raised concerns regarding how the facilities will be able to maintain a proper temperature for dry-land activities. According to Bray, the municipality will be working with the heating system in the arena that is used for the spectator stands and redirect it to the floor.
"We'll see what that does with the ambient temperature," he said. "If not, we will take other measures to heat up the floor area."
Because of low ice usage, the municipality’s ten arenas are operating at a deficit of $235,867 per month. The repurposing is likely to provide an estimated operational savings of $164,000. Bray added that's he's already gotten several calls from groups that are interested in booking the arenas for dry-land activities, which he said is encouraging.
"We'll have some media releases as we get closer to the date. We want to set rates that are competitive and make the facilities appealing to people. If they are interested they can call me and get on a list for booking," said Bray. "There's a lot of people that don't skate and they want to stay active and have an indoor facility to do some activities."