Politics & Government

No Dice On New Ice Irks Woodbury Hockey Club

The group's president says he's "frustrated" the city has decided not to pursue a third indoor ice sheet as part of the Bielenberg Sports Center rebuild.

Woodbury officials have opted not to include a new indoor ice sheet as part of plans for a rebuilt .

That doesn’t sit well with Pete Stuckert, president of the Woodbury Area Hockey Club.

“We’re concerned that if a third sheet (of ice) is not built now, it probably will never be built,” he said. “I don’t understand why the third sheet was taken off the master plan.”

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The city is planning a $15.5 million with a new permanent structure, and though earlier plans called for a new indoor sheet of ice, that’s now off the table.

“There’s not the demand to warrant it,” said Bob Klatt, the city’s Parks and Recreation director.

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Area hockey and skating groups aren’t fully utilizing the ice time currently available, Klatt said, notably the early morning and evening hours.

Stuckert, however, said the Woodbury Area Hockey Club, and other groups in the area, have taken to purchasing ice time elsewhere. His group recently signed up for 1,000 hours of yearly ice time at Harding High School for $175,000 to $180,000 per.

“That could be spent with the city,” said Stuckert.

The Woodbury Area Hockey Club exceeded 1,100 members this year, and with the anticipated growth in the city, it makes sense to build another ice sheet now, Stuckert said.

“A lot of those kids are going to play hockey,” he said.

There is a perception that the deal with Harding satisfied the youth hockey club’s ice issues, Stuckert said, but it really only consolidated usage from the dozens of arenas it used to rent.

The Bielenberg Sports Center has two sheets of indoor ice, which will remain in place under the rebuild. One of those was partly funded ($250,000) by the Woodbury Area Hockey Club, and the group’s final payment is due next year.

Asked if the club might be willing to contribute funds for a third sheet, Stuckert said: “My knee-jerk reaction is no. … We’d already be paying through user fees.”

“It’s getting extremely expensive to play (hockey) and that’s very concerning to me, especially in this economy,” he said.

While an indoor ice sheet is not in the plans for the Bielenberg project at this point, architects will be asked to look at a refrigerated outdoor sheet of ice as an option, Klatt said.

If built, the outdoor sheet would be constructed in a way that it could be enclosed in the future, Klatt said.

Stuckert said the club would use an outdoor ice sheet, but it wouldn’t be as useful as an indoor facility, and it’s difficult to ask young skaters to head outside when temperatures dip toward zero.

There hasn’t been lot of support from the Woodbury City Council for a third sheet of ice, “which is frustrating,” Stuckert said.

On Wednesday night, the Woodbury City Council agreed to put out requests for proposals for design work on the Bielenberg rebuild. The initial architectural work would cost $50,000 to $75,000, Klatt said.

“That will give us a good set of plans we can use,” he said.

Each step in the process will include “trapdoors” that allow the city to back out of the project at any time, City Administrator Clint Gridley said.

Councilman Christopher Burns said the architectural drawings will give people an opportunity to comment on the plans. He acknowledged the concerns of area athletics groups, and said it might be an option for them to pursue a referendum for a third ice sheet.

The project is expected to begin in 2013.


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