Toronto arenas on thin ice

[billonlogan]

Yeah I know it's the Toronto Sun, but the columnist is looking for suggestions. Specifically what must change for this city to be better.
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Link to Article

Toronto arenas on thin ice
City's rinks are at the end of their life and there's no cash for new ones
By ROB GRANATSTEIN

During last year's Winter Olympics, some of Toronto's leaders spoke up about why this city's athletes don't find their way to the podium.

"If you want to get into Olympic sports, you have to move from Toronto," Canadian Olympic Committee CEO Chris Rudge said.

"There's nothing here," said Karen Pitre, chairman of the Toronto Sports Council. "The athletes all move to Calgary."

"We're good at the playground level," said Toronto's general manager of parks, Brenda Librecz. "But not very good to the podium."

This year's Canadian Junior team does not have a single Toronto kid on the roster.

It's appalling, and, to no one's surprise, there isn't any money in this broke city to fix the problem.

Let's focus on the city's arenas. The last time Toronto built an arena was 1981. Toronto's rinks are an average of 40 years old.

Librecz said the city's budget for building and repairing buildings is $30 million a year. One multi-pad arena would swallow the whole budget for a year, when the city's already years behind in caring for its old facilities.

The last arena built was the twin-pad Scarborough Village arena. Before that it was 1974. Thanks to funding from the Lakeshore Lions Club, Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment and a land swap, a new four-pad city facility will be built in Etobicoke, with construction starting later this year. And at no charge to the city.

It's happening just in time for a city that's still hockey mad. A city where women's hockey is exploding and there's no place for them to play.

"Basically all of our rinks are at the end of their shelf life," Librecz told councillors last year.

The Etobicoke private-public partnership is clearly the way Toronto has to start thinking. It's the only way our crumbling facilities will ever improve.

That's the case in Don Mills, where the Don Mills Arena is nearing the end of its useful life, Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong said.

But there is hope. Cadillac Fairview has turned the Don Mills Centre next door into rubble and is looking to build a new mall on the north part of the huge site and partner with a developer to build condos and townhouses on the south half of the land.

In the way of some of the development is the Don Mills Civitan Arena (where I played some of my peewee hockey).

Minnan-Wong said the developer can build around the rink, or the city can look at a partnership where the rink is replaced with a new facility somewhere on the site.

"Here's an opportunity to partner with a private developer to replace the arena or add a community centre, which Don Mills doesn't have," Minnan-Wong said. "The city can no longer go it on its own."

There's another option, too.

The city has land at Don Mills Rd. and Hwy. 401. Minnan-Wong is hoping a partnership could be formed to build a three-pad complex, where Toronto would have a developer come in and build the rinks on the city land. Toronto would get one rink and the private developer would get the other two.

"It's a creative way to do it," Minnan-Wong said.

It's going to take creativity to get Toronto out of this hole where facilities are falling down, not getting built up.

Why is this important? Most house league hockey -- neighbourhood kids wanting to learn the game and play for fun -- happens at city-owned arenas where the price is lower and the kids aren't elbowed out of the way by adult hockey. Even competitive hockey leagues, like the GTHL play most of their games at city facilities.

It's time for City Hall to get cracking on partnerships with the private sector -- we're already skating on thin ice.

Just a reminder to get in your suggestions on how to fix Toronto. Send me BOTH what you love and what specifically must change for this city to be better. And get past the "Miller must go" rant. I'll take the suggestions to the mayor, and Hockey Hall of Fame passes go to some of the best suggestions.
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I'm hoping someone builds a 2 or 3 pad complex in the Portlands. We desperately need more indoor rinks in the east end(and I don't mean Scarborough). Most rinks locally are booked solid for hockey leagues and pleasure skating, but good luck finding an hour or two for shinny.

 

[Observer Walt]

It's a symptom of how Toronto seems to be finding it difficult to provide infrastructure generally. This in turn goes back to the "fiscal imbalance" which has grown up over many years, thanks to federal and provincial governments. The latter have the capacity to collect increasing tax revenues as the economy does well, but have shown reluctance to share with the municipal level, who are not in the same happy situation.

 

[wyliepoon]

The Star

Link to article

A rink of their own
TANNIS TOOHEY / TORONTO STAR



Women's and girls' hockey could get a boost if new waterfront project gets the go-ahead, by Mary Ormsby
January 13, 2007
Mary Ormsby
Sports Reporter

The Leaside girls hockey teams play out of 16 different arenas across Toronto because access to affordable ice is so scarce.

Local women who have been the core of Canada's national team frequently leave family, jobs and school behind to train in Calgary. And cheaper, more plentiful suburban arenas to the west are tempting the elite Toronto Aeros junior women's team to leave town.

All the evidence suggests area arenas have long underserved the GTA's approximately 10,000 female hockey players. But a solution could take shape next week when local officials consider a proposed $30 million four-pad arena for the waterfront.

Not only would the development be the GTA's first largely taxpayer-funded arena in more than a quarter-century, it would be the first with a rink dedicated exclusively to female hockey.

The plan, to be discussed Tuesday by the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Committee, features an Olympic-sized surface that would be used as a regional training centre for the women's national teams and to stage international competitions. Two other ice pads would be regulation size and one would be dry for sports like box lacrosse.

Toronto's Vicky Sunohara, an Olympic gold medallist at the 2006 Olympic Games in Turin, said female players are desperate for the facility.

"It's pretty amazing they're going to have one pad for women," said the 36-year-old Sunohara, who leaves for a week-long national training camp Sunday in Calgary.

"I still hear about so many (girls) teams and leagues who have a tough time getting ice and they get put on some crazy ice times and playing in the not-so-great arenas so this is great news for women."

Ted Ashwin, general manager of the Aeros, agrees.

"I'm either going to have to move out of the city to find ice that's appropriate to our level of play," said Ashwin of his program that produces GTA players for U.S. hockey scholarships, adding, "Or, I'll need help in finding the right spot."

The waterfront committee, which received $20 million for sports infrastructure from the federal government in 2004, will discuss the results of a feasibility study. The following day, Wednesday, there will be a public forum on the plans for Lake Ontario Park, an area bounded by the outer harbour between Cherry Beach and Ashbridges Bay and including Tommy Thompson Park.

No arena site has been decided, but sources say Unwin Avenue near Cherry Street is a location under discussion, possibly directly across from Lake Ontario Park but not in it.

"It's a no-brainer," said Brenda Librecz, general manager of the city's parks, forestry and recreation department of taking the user stress off the city's 50 indoor arenas by catering to the booming women's game.

"The city wins in getting an ice rink that will be available to the community, we donate one pad completely to female hockey. ... This is a win-win situation for the objectives of the waterfront in drawing more people to the port lands as a destination."

But not everyone is as quick to embrace hockey as a perfect addition to the coveted waterfront.

"If you're going to be coming down to a new park, you don't want to be running into a huge concrete building as the first thing you see," said city councillor Paula Fletcher, who worries a building with a parking lot will detract from the beauty of the greenbelt. "An arena isn't exactly the most attractive building."

Fletcher said she would fight any plan to ensure an arena "is not stuck onto or into the park" but said a blending of sports needs with park needs is possible.

"I think we have to plan holistically and we'll find a place for everything," said Fletcher, who will attend Wednesday's public forum.

Should the waterfront corporation decide to proceed with the arena, the $10 million funding shortfall could be made up with a blend of government and private sector resources, a spokesperson from Mayor David Miller's office yesterday

Once such example of a private-public partnership is the planned $29 million practice facility for the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Marlies in the west end.

Financing is coming from Maple Leaf Sport and Entertainment and the Lakeshore Lions. During non prime time hours, the city has access to ice at below-market rates, with ice time reserved for the Etobicoke Dolphins girls hockey league.

Librecz says it has been 26 years since an arena was built with taxpayer funds. A pair of Scarborough facilities – Malvern and Scarborough Arena Gardens – were erected in 1981. No arenas have been built in the city's core since the 1970s.

Librecz says studies show demand on city arenas continues to grow, especially with more adults playing the game, and more facilities are needed, not just to make ice available but to provide it at a lower cost than the pricey private arenas.

The Leaside Wildcats girls program, for instance, uses private arenas for 45 per cent of its ice time to give its 732 players on 47 teams a place to play. Jordan Grant, Leaside's volunteer director of strategic ice acquisition – yes, that's his title – said the typical city rate for ice is $147 an hour whereas the league pays up to $334 per hour at private rinks.

"That's the killer, the cost of the ice,'' said Grant, who "scrounges" ice at so many arenas to find bargains since Leaside Memorial Arena, a city facility, can't alone service its youth boys and girls programs. There is also a preliminary city proposal to expand Leaside to two pads.

Fran Ryder, the executive director of the Ontario Women's Hockey League, commended the proposed waterfront arena as a public validation of female hockey.

"Ten years ago it would have been beyond belief that an arena would cater exclusively to women," Ryder said. "But the women's game is growing, awareness is growing and it's all good for the game."

 

[billonlogan]

Great news!

 

[mettle]

would be nice on our waterfront

www.hamiltonspectator.com...4656511815

Bring your skates! New outdoor pond has its own Zamboni
By Carmela Fragomeni
The Hamilton Spectator
(Jan 19, 2007)

...The pond is actually part of a 929-square-metre, year-round water feature. When it no longer offers free ice-skating, it serves as a reflective pool for model sailboats.

Skaters can walk right into the adjacent building, Discovery Landing, with their skates on for a rest, to use the washroom, or get a snack, because the building floors are rubberized.

On days when the wind is strong and whips up off the lake, large translucent panels by the rinkside come down from posts to offer protection.

 

[Edward]

Red tape freezes Don Mills arena scheme
http://www.thestar.com/article/558007

Service club picks site, vows to raise funds, but bureaucratic rules reduce project to crawl
Dec 24, 2008 04:30 AM

PAUL MOLONEY
CITY HALL BUREAU
In the land of the Leafs you would think it would be a done deal.

But getting an arena built in Toronto is a tough sell.

It's been nearly three decades since the city last built an icepad (at Scarborough's Malvern Community Recreation Centre) dedicated to recreational hockey.

City staff say Toronto could use a half-dozen new arenas for hockey and pleasure skating, since ice time is at such a premium.

So, you would think a service club's proposal to raise the funds to put up a new arena on vacant city land at the southwest corner of Don Mills Rd. and Highway 401 would be a winner. But bureaucracy and red tape have slowed the effort to a near standstill.

The Don Mills Civitan Service Club, which started thinking about a new facility back in 2001, has a proposal ready to team up with the city to replace Don Mills Civitan Arena, which is 47 years old and falling apart.

"I've been through one parks commissioner and I'm on my second general manager of parks since this started," said Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong, who represents the ward.

"The city should be looking at this as an opportunity and should be looking to cut red tape and cut down obstacles."

The city had identified the 18-hectare site as suitable for a rink back in 2005 and requested proposals for the construction and management of a three-pad arena. However, the request was scrapped a month later because of restrictive covenants on the land.

Seems the provincial government was willing to give the site to the city in 1958 but wanted it to remain undeveloped.

The city believes the restriction could be lifted to allow a recreation facility. However, the province won't respond until it receives a formal request from the city, said Amy Tang, spokesperson for Energy and Infrastructure Minister George Smitherman.

At last month's meeting of the North York community council, politicians directed parks staff to review the Civitan proposal and report on its feasibility at the May 12, 2009, meeting of its government management committee.

David Croutch, president of the Don Mills Civitan Hockey League, sees the move as progress.

"The site is now effectively recognized as the preferred site, which implies staff in the city of Toronto are not looking at any other potential sites," Croutch said in an interview. "We are now to explore a formal business plan. That's good. That is significant."

Next up is filing a business plan, including preliminary design work, financial estimates, funding commitments and timelines for the project, expected to cost $27 million to $30 million.

Also needed are site studies, an assessment of the impact on the Don River valley, stormwater management, traffic and other items.

All told, it may cost $250,000 to hire consultants to do the studies, an expense that the service club would like the city to bear if the project winds up being mothballed.

"Don't ask me to pony up $250,000 in studies for a definite maybe," Croutch said. "I can't do that. That's just wrong. I could run our hockey league for a couple years from the cost of those studies alone."

Disagreeing is Councillor Shelley Carroll, budget committee chair and a key member of Mayor David Miller's administration.

"It seems to me that (Civitans) ought to be able to donate some money," said Carroll, whose ward is just to the north. "If, as part of your business case, you want to prove you can raise $30 million, I would say raising a couple of hundred thousand to do initial studies is the best way."

One key issue to be studied is whether an arena could harm the adjacent Don River valley.

The area is overseen by the Toronto Region Conservation Authority, which has a mandate to protect watercourses.

"All the primary valleys that are vegetated and part of the Don system, we consider them `small-S' significant," said Carolyn Woodland, the authority's director of planning and development.

"You're in an urban context, so they are very important for the natural heritage system, to protect the water quality."

Woodland stressed that no plans have been submitted for the authority's review, so it has yet to adopt an official position.

Carroll said while the city at large is short of ice surfaces, the immediate vicinity is pretty well served by Oriole arena on Don Mills Rd., Pleasantview on Van Horne Ave., and Victoria Village on Bermondsey Rd.

Just don't tell that to John Gardner, president of the Greater Toronto Hockey League.

The proposed arena "is a badly needed facility and certainly we'd like to be able to rent as much ice time as they had available for minor hockey," Gardner said.

"It's in an ideal location no matter whether you're coming from the east or west."

The minor hockey czar said he's frustrated by how long the approvals process is taking.

"The land they're contemplating to build on has been serving no useful purpose," Gardner said.

"It isn't as if they're dropping it in the middle of a residential area. We support the efforts of Don Mills Civitans 100 per cent."

 

[Conrad Black]

I always wondered what the deal was with that lot. For the longest time it was just one big field where they kept the grass cut. Then they built two apartment buildings along Don Mills and let the rest of the field revert back to forest. Now they want to cut part of it down and build an ice rink.