All 4 ice surfaces are needed: task force

Council urged to maintain all arenas; Memorial and McLaren have outlived their life expectancies

Penticton needs four arenas. In a 33-minute presentation to Penticton city council on Tuesday, Arena Task Force chairman Stewart Ladyman said that if Penticton were to lose one of its four ice surfaces, 80 hours of use per week would need to be relocated to the remaining three rinks. As a result, his group successfully urged council to commit to maintaining four ice sheets.

“We had very open and honest discussions, we were very transparent,” Ladyman told council. “We were not afraid to ask the hard questions and we had hundreds of suggestions come forward from the public.”

McLaren Arena has the most deficiencies of Penticton’s ice surfaces, which also include Memorial Arena plus two rinks at the South Okanagan Events Centre.

In addition to not being a regulation-sized rink, the ceiling is too low, which causes issues for lacrosse. McLaren does not allow for optional booking capacity, dryland and warm-up areas, it’s not on the South Okanagan Events Centre campus and its sustainability to all user groups is limited. Other issues include dressing room doors that open facing a hallway, creating an invasion of privacy when someone is undressing.

Meanwhile, strikes against Memorial Arena are few, the main one being that the ice surface is not regulation size. Memorial, of the four arenas in Penticton, has the most non-prime hours booked which is a positive.

Prime time ice is considered 4 p.m. until midnight on weekdays and all day on weekends. The Okanagan Hockey Group, Ladyman said, books many hours of non-prime ice due to its hockey school programs.

Ladyman said arenas have an average life expectancy of 35 to 40 years, and both Memorial and McLaren have outlived their expectancy. Memorial is 67 years old and McLaren is 44. The SOEC opened in 2008 and next year celebrates its 10th anniversary.

Among the suggestions from the task force is the possibility of a dry facility that would allow for exclusive use of sports such as lacrosse and pickleball, the latter a growing activity with older adults and seniors.

Council also Tuesday authorized the task force and staff to proceed with a feasibility study on arena usage in the community. A consultant will be required and the process will be put out to a request for proposals. The money for the task force was previously approved in the budget.