Cambrian Arena needs $1M in repairs

There's a “heck of a lot of kids out there that want to play” hockey with the Sudbury Playground Hockey League this season that won't be able to because the Cambrian Arena is closed indefinitely, according to the league's scheduler.

Last year, the hockey league had about 620 children between the ages of four and 18 register, said Brad Basso.

This year, registrations will be capped at about 520 children because less ice time is available. The midget division for 17 and 18-year-olds has been cut entirely.

The Cambrian Arena, which was built in 1972, is being closed because it doesn't have subsurface heating, and as a result, the floor has been shifting upwards and downwards. The floor will need to be replaced at a cost of $1 million.

“This has recently even caused the boards and the glass to shift upwards. We had to repair it on two separate occasions this season,” said Ray Mensour, manager of arenas for the City of Greater Sudbury.

“What we did this year is we got an engineer study done on the floor. They said that if we continue to operate that arena, the brine pipes underneath the floor could burst and cause serious damage. It could cause serious environmental damage as well.”

Mensour will be presenting a report to city council early this fall, and hopes they will make a decision about how to fund repairs to the arena soon.

The Sudbury Playground Hockey League, a weekend league which runs most of its games at the Cambrian Arena, is normally allocated 42 hours of ice time per weekend.

Organizations at other city arenas have given back eight per cent of their ice time to help out organizations affected by the closure of the arena, which is located in the Cambrian Heights area off of Notre Dame Avenue.

Still, the hockey league has ended up with just 36 hours of ice time per weekend, said Basso.

The Sudbury Figure Skating Club, which has more than 200 members, is also affected by the arena's closure. It normally conducts all of its activities out of the Cambrian Arena.

“I think the biggest thing is we need to get the city on board to repair the arena this year,” said Sean Murray, president of the club.

“It's of absolute paramount importance for the survival of our club. Travelling around for a year is OK, but doing it long-term is just not an option .We won't be able to survive. That would be a shame given the status that the club has attained over the years, especially on the competitive side.”

Murray said the figure skating club has been allocated the same number of hours it had at Cambrian at other arenas, but many of the slots are at impractical times.

He said they will make up for this by sharing ice time other other figure skating clubs in the city.

Murray said he's most worried about the club's CanSkate program, which is the financial backbone of the organization and develops new figure skaters.

“As the Sudbury Figure Skating Club, I can't have a CanSkate program in Capreol or Garson. Not only does it not make sense for the Sudbury Figure Skating Club to have a CanSkate program out in the periphery, but also other figure skating clubs run their own CanSkate programs out there. You don't want to impact upon them,” he said.

“Depending upon how our programming works out, in terms of where our arenas are located, we may have to turn people away for that (CanSkate).”

Mensour said the situation is “unfortunate,” but he's done his best to ensure users of the Cambrian Arena haven't been left without ice time.

“Basically the Cambrian Arena users will be re-located to various arenas,” he said.

The arrangement is similar to the one made for users of the McClelland Arena, which was just brought back into service this month after a fire a year ago caused smoke and fire damage to the structure, said Mensour.