A bid to base a junior level hockey team here has not made it past the first puck drop.
District of Houston council March 15 voted to turn down a proposal by the Greater Metro Hockey League to sign a deal so a Junior A-level team could play in the Claude Parish Memorial Arena.
In turning down the proposal, council considered a two-page detailed memo from recreation services director Cassie Ofner pointing out that the 21 evenings of arena time the team would need, as well as other arena requirements, would affect current users.
“Current ice users would have to either limit their evening ice use on Fridays or Saturdays due to Junior A games or be forced to host league games or tournaments outside of the municipality,” she wrote in examining ringette and figure skating uses.
Ofner did say regular ice time would not be affected as the league had said its practice times would not be on weekends and would be before the prime time hours of after 4 p.m.
One significant challenge would rest with the hockey league’s requirement of a full-time dressing room and coaches’ room.
“Allocating one dressing room exclusively to a new league with the community would result in major scheduling impacts to the programming of regular ice time and tournament schedules at the arena,” Ofner added as it would leave just three dressing rooms available for others.
She did note the league had the potential of attracting more members of the public to the arena and offered the potential for increased advertising revenue.
Team players would also be required to volunteer for community service.
The idea also received a thumbs down from local users worried about the impact on current schedules.
“Houston is the only community between Prince George and Terrace to have only one sheet of ice and also offer ringette, minor hockey and figure skating,” added a letter from Houston Minor Hockey Association acting president Cordella Carroll.
“If there were to be a junior team here, it would greatly affect the current user groups’ ice times, which could result in the folding of an organization or worse, two,” the letter continued.
The Greater Metro Hockey League has its origins in the Toronto area but since has been expanding westward. It is not sanctioned by Hockey Canada, a factor which has drawn criticism and questions from other leagues and communities.
The league does have teams in Alberta and its BC plans were mostly sidelined due to the pandemic.
In the north, the league also made approaches to Kitimat, which has said ‘yes’, and to Burns Lake which has also said ‘yes’.
There was opposition in Burns Lake by the Burns Lake Minor Hockey Association.
Burns Lake officials did contact eight communities where the league has teams and found that things were working well.