MAPLETON – The township’s parks and recreation committee (PARC) is looking at creating a policy regarding allocation of ice time at the PMD arena.
At the Dec. 12 Mapleton council meeting, councillor Michael Martin noted the issue was discussed at the Oct. 12 PARC meeting.
“That arena is at capacity this year as far as user groups and the ice time that’s available. Drayton minor hockey has been purchasing ice elsewhere,” said Martin.
He pointed out ice time is being rented out to organizations outside Mapleton, including the Centre Wellington Minor Hockey Association (CWMA).
“We have increased registration this year, a couple of extra teams and I do know that it may change a little bit in the new year with the Elora arena going back online again,” Martin said.
“But I’m just wondering if there are opportunities, maybe for next year, to selfishly make sure that our local user groups get priority on ice time before we entertain minor hockey associations from out of town?
“Is that something we could look at, or have a pecking order?”
Martin noted there’s an argument to be made that some Mapleton youth play on Centre Wellington-based teams and “ there’s a degree of fairness that you could attach to that argument.
“But we also have a bunch of kids, my kid included, that play in Elmira and that association doesn’t come up here and use our ice time … So just wondering if we could have strategies, maybe for next year, it’s tough to do it now, that we can maybe look at how we divvy out the ice time?” he added.
Public works director Jamie Morgan replied that Mapleton staff is currently putting together a policy on how ice time is allocated at the PMD area.
“And we’ve been gathering policies from neighbouring communities to make sure that we’re kind of in line with everybody else in how the ice is allocated to the local user groups,” said Morgan.
“I think 6am ice time is still available,” quipped Mayor Gregg Davidson.
“We have lots of non-prime ice time available if somebody is looking for it,” said Morgan.
“Ice time is available, just not when people want to use it,” Davidson observed.
