MINDEMOYA—The ongoing saga of the Mindemoya arena took a new turn this past week when the combination of heavy snowfalls, followed by rain, led to a shifting of the arena wall leading to the early closure of the facility.
The municipality had intended to extend the ice-in season by almost a couple of weeks in order to accommodate a Manitoulin Minor Hockey tournament (MMHA), but the shifting of the wall near the players’ boxes became a concern.
“With the snow levels, we have been monitoring the situation,” noted Central Manitoulin CAO Denise Deforge. “The combination of the heavy snow at the end of February and then the rain put a heavy load on the wall, and it did move.”
Read our related story, “Central Manitoulin Council votes to repair Mindemoya arena”
The municipality brought in an engineer to assess the situation. “The engineer told us we need to close a portion of the facility.” That portion included the players’ boxes.
When the Manitoulin Minor Hockey Association was informed of the changes, they indicated that the tournament could not proceed without access to the players’ boxes.
“With no other rentals, we closed the facility down for the season,” said Ms. Deforge.
The municipality did offer the Providence Bay arena as an alternative location for the games, but that facility was not acceptable to the MMHA.
As to why the tournament could not simply move to the Providence Bay arena, Manitoulin Minor Hockey Association President TJ McDermid pointed out that it was not necessarily that the arena was not suitable. “It is not that the Prov arena is not suitable,” he explained, “but the facility has a much smaller ice surface and common area compared to Mindemoya. It is fine for practices and younger divisions games and we used it for U11 and U13 playoff games. But the smaller ice surface for older divisions like U15 and U18 takes away from the game and is viewed as a safety concern. Hockey has evolved; the game is much faster, even at the house league level. When you put 12 players and three officials on an ice surface there is always risk of incidental contact and incidents that result in injury or on-ice altercations. Now put that on the much smaller ice surface especially for U18/ U15 games, it becomes a much greater safety concern and risk for the players and officials.”
As to the cost of repairing the Mindemoya facility, Ms. Deforge indicated that information would be coming out of the in-depth assessment being conducted by the engineers.
The Mindemoya arena has been the source of some controversy in recent years as council has contemplated its replacement with a modern multi-use complex—and its potential multi-million-dollar cost.
