An upcoming plebiscite is looking to gauge the community's opinions on a new ice surface, with one community organization looking to make its voice known.
The Estevan Minor Hockey Association sent out a release voicing their support for a new ice surface here in Estevan. President Stephen Truman says that they hope to let people know just how badly another surface is needed.
"Estevan Minor Hockey is just hoping to raise awareness and make sure everybody makes their voice heard in the upcoming municipal elections. We are lucky to have the opportunity to vote on a plebiscite that directly affects all Estevan Minor Hockey users and the whole community of Estevan. They just wanted to get everybody educated as to what our position is and hope they get out and vote."
Truman says that if another ice surface is made, it will help free up space for more events which would drive economic growth for the city.
"We're hoping the community would see an even greater increase in economic impact than what Estevan Minor Hockey already provides. We estimate that we're well over $1 million in impact alone from our tournaments that we host each year. We would hope to double that economic impact by increasing the number of tournaments and increasing the size of the tournaments that we hold. We would also hope that we'd increase traffic to Estevan."
"We really want Estevan to be known...as a hockey destination."
While the project does have the capability of being a great resource for the community Truman says he understands some people worry about the cost.
"Estevan Minor Hockey does understand that with any capital cost incurred by the city that there is a taxpayer burden - we're well aware of that. We would definitely hope to have large fundraising campaigns. We would hope there would be some community grants or government grants available that we could chase."
He posited the idea of potentially having a tourism levy applied to hotel guests as a way to help fund the new arena. Truman expressed that when visitors come to Estevan for various hockey events, a lot of the hotels are booked, and that the EMHA would like to see the potential dollars go towards the capital project. He also brought up the potential to apply for the Hockey Day in Saskatchewan contest, which would bring in funding and attention to a new ice surface.
Truman says they're not stuck on a single proposal and would like to see what would best suit the community.
"We're open to several suggestions at this time. We think that there are different proposals based on what the other cities need, other user groups’ need. There's some opportunity to have multi-sport facilities or compliment the facilities that are already in place. As far as another arena, we understand that the Affinity Place was built for the community of Estevan as an event centre. In order for Affinity Place to be truly an event centre, we feel that we would like another ice surface so that Estevan Minor Hockey and all ice sports user groups aren't so severely affected when Affinity Place is used for any event.”
While some city officials and other towns say that surfaces in other locales could be improved, Truman says there's such a need for ice times that an Estevan solution needs to be considered.
“We will continue to support the neighbouring arenas. We love the neighbouring arenas - they're very welcoming towards us. But, I think what our community needs to understand is that right now, there is no available weekday ice in any neighbouring community. I think that is even to the tune of within 100 kilometres of Estevan. Our teams’ development is limited by the fact that we cannot find any more weekday ice and we would like to increase that so we can get some more practice and have teams not sharing practices during the week."
Truman argued that not all neighbouring communities have arenas that can support the high level of hockey from the EMHA like the Estevan Bruins, the Estevan Bears or their AA teams, to name a few. “If we did in fact lose Affinity Place, we don't have a backup plan for those teams as well."
The Estevan Minor Hockey Association has made their full statement available on their website.
Citizens will be able to make their voices known during the plebiscite, which will take place Wednesday, November 13, along with the civic election.