Why No Summer Ice? Councillor Asks

Other smaller communities may have summer ice and skating at their arenas but not Moose Jaw. It is a question a councillor asked “why not” about.

At Monday evening regular meeting of City Council Councillor Doug Blanc asked why other communities had summer ice and Moose Jaw did not? The answer is one of demand and cost.

“Why (do) small communities (like) Pilot Butte, White City they have skating year round and we don’t. I was wondering if the Parks and Recreation Department ever looked into the future of having?” Councillor Blanc asked.

City manager Jim Puffalt said presently there is no demand to help recover the cost of summer ice.

“There is not any demand at present to have summer ice in. Caronport does have summer ice as does Notre Dame they also have summer ice so there is lots of summer ice around,” Puffalt replied.

“Our premise is that if we don’t have customers we are not going to put that expense out and lose more money than we do on recreational facilities,” he said, adding “we have a very good cost recovery and that is because we do things like that.”

It needs to be noted the City has traditionally aimed for a 50 percent cost recovery for arena costs from users such as minor hockey subsidizing half of the arena costs.

Additionally Caronport and Notre Dame are the homes of elite hockey programs and summer hockey camps are run in those communities.