Ice allocation policy cause for concern by long-time users
It seems not everyone is on-side with a new township policy regarding allocation of ice time and sports fields. In January, Clearview council adopted a new policy aimed at improving access for minor sports groups, including Collingwood girls hockey. Gord Zeggil, speaking on behalf of adult users notes that in some cases, this means that long standing relationships with local users groups will be overridden, in favour of users from outside the township.
“We’re talking about groups that have had the same ice time dating back to the old arena, in some cases for 50 or 60 years. These are local people who pay taxes in Clearview, and who support these facilities.”
Under the new policy, priority order for ice time and sports field allocation will be:
- Clearview Township programs and services;
- Clearview minor sport groups that provide programs serving youth 21 years of age and younger and that are not currently in a pre-approved license agreement;
- Non-municipal minor sports groups;
- Tournaments and special events;
- Adult groups;
- Commercial and occasional groups;
- Non-municipal groups and occasional users.
Initially, Section 3 of the new policy defined non- municipal minor sports groups as having 40 per cent local participants. An amendment to be voted on at Monday’s council meeting would reduce that to 20 per cent local participants.
“That makes it even easier for them to bump long term users,” said Zeggil. “I sponsor two girls hockey teams, but I think there is a way to accommodate them without bumping existing user groups. The township is saying they are reacting to extreme pressure on ice time. I’ve spoken with representatives of minor hockey and figure skating who are not predicting growth in their needs, so this is really about Collingwood girls hockey.”
Zeggil says he spent an hour and a half looking at existing ice time allocations, and came up with a schedule that created an additional 2.5 hours per week of ice time. “Currently, there are several groups who are renting 1.5-hour blocks. I spoke with three groups who said they would gladly give up the extra half hour to make more room for minor sports. Clearview is copying a policy from Wasaga Beach whereas eight or 10 other policies that we examined protect existing arrangements.”
The proposed amendment will be presented to council on Monday evening.
