The Under 18 Ice Time pilot program at Altona's Sunflower Gardens this past winter was well-received by the public, according to the town's Recreation Manager.
Collaboratively developed with Altona Minor Hockey and the Altona Skating Club, the program offered additional ice time, free-of-charge, when the rink wasn't booked, giving youth more opportunities to hone their hockey and figure skating skills. In exchange, Altona Minor Hockey provided $2,500 to help offset some of the related expenses.
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"It was a bit of a trial and error this year, working with our arena schedule and identifying those gaps and, of course advertising them," explained Eric Hildebrand.
Skaters log hundreds of hours
In the end, just over 300 hours of additional ice time was made available to local youth this past winter.
While there wasn't any official tracking done of how well the various slots were being used, Hildebrand added, they did notice varied use throughout.
Weekdays at 8:30 p.m. and later were not the most popular. However, earlier ice times during the week, on the weekend and on weekdays when there was no school tended to see a lot more usage.
"Towards the end of the season, as some minor hockey teams started to become eliminated from their league playoffs and skating club members were starting to slow down then, of course, we started to see more people take advantage of these free ice times," explained Hildebrand.
The future looks promising
Overall, Hildebrand believes the concept of the program is fantastic and says the Rec. department is open to operating something similar in the future.
"We'll try to do a bit of a better job looking at the schedule and trying to identify those times on specific dates that would make sense and be more user-friendly to the demographic we're trying to attract with this program," he explained.
However, Hildebrand says some additional conversations will have to be had with Altona Minor Hockey and the skating club about additional funding to help cover costs.
"What that will look like, that's to be determined," he said. "The goal will be to keep these ice times free to the youth that want to take advantage of them, but we also have to take a look at cost-recovery."
One option, noted Hildebrand, could be seeking out sponsorships.