BOYLE – It’s a decision village council didn’t want to make, but the ice is officially coming out in the Village of Boyle.
Councillors made the unanimous decision at a special meeting Jan. 26 meant to bring in user groups to discuss removing the skating and curling ice in the Millview Recreation Complex — namely the Boyle Minor Hockey Association and the Boyle Curling Club.
The writing was pretty much on the wall though, as councillors discussed the costs of operating the ice plant with nobody using either ice surface at their Jan. 13 meeting, along with the fact that other municipalities are removing their ice as well, due to the restrictions brought about by COVID-19, which, at the time, had no end in sight.
“We wanted to have the curling club, and Boyle Minor Hockey in on this meeting, just to make sure we're getting things right and that everybody's on the same page,” said mayor Colin Derko to open up the discussion.
Minor hockey president Tanya Bossel was there to provide a perspective from the main user group of the facility, along with Candy Nikipelo on behalf of the curling club.
Bossel noted Hockey Alberta has not yet made a final determination as to whether to continue the season, but were in talks with Alberta Health Services to see what a continuation of the season would look like.
“With that being said, Hockey Alberta has stated if the government doesn't decide by February 1, they will decide. They also said their decision does not mean that there will not be hockey. It's kind of out of our hands because I understand it costs a lot of money to run that rink during warmer months,” said Bossel.
“Kids want to play; parents want to put their kids in — they still want to play.”
Nikipelo said the curling club had been waiting for the government to signal there may be a chance to salvage the season by reconsidering gathering restrictions for indoor sports, but that didn’t happen.
“I think we've made the decision, with there being no end in sight, that we don't have much of a season left and we absolutely would not be prepared to extending any kind of season past the end of March anyway, so we've resigned ourselves to the fact that there probably isn't going to be a season. Now that the government did make that decision, we're prepared to agree to the plant being shut off for sure,” said Nikipelo.
Derko reiterated the difficulty of making the decision, but the financial implications for the village were just too great.
“We'd really, really like to keep it open because it is important to our little town,” he said. “But it's just not in the cards right now and that's the sad part I guess is, it's the sad reality.”
“It's a big void in the community, but unfortunately, I think our hands are tied at this point,” said Coun. Mike Antal. “It takes up your winter months of having nothing to do right? And the kids have got to be going crazy they can’t do anything, so you feel for them.”
With the decision made Nikipelo said she hopes the community will step up and help with the outdoor rink.
“Once maybe some of the heavier government restrictions are lifted, there's no reason why some shinny can't go on there with everybody looking after it to make sure that it's clean and cleared and everything and that it doesn't fall on the shoulders of just a few people,” she said.
Derko agreed and tipped his hat to all the village volunteers.
“Without our volunteers in Boyle Minor Hockey and our curling club, we wouldn't have those things in our community, so we just want to try and make sure that we're doing things fiscally responsible and making sure we have respect for our partners,” said Derko.
