Deachman: Demise of the Belltown Dome — Is this what awaits Ottawa’s other urban rinks?

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I stepped onto the ice at the Belltown Dome arena for the first time years ago and marvelled, in ways both good and bad, at the novelty of the facility.

The remarkable structure was the first thing to catch my eye, before I even entered the Britannia-area arena. It looked like a cross between a very large set of monkey bars and a very small tribute to Buckminster Fuller’s famed geodesic dome  at Expo ’67 in Montreal.

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Inside the uninsulated building, I found a small single ice surface. Only 80 per cent as long as a regulation NHL rink and about 70 per cent as wide, it was too small for five-on-five hockey. But it served admirably for an hour of four-on-four shinny, and the reduced ice time that the smaller rink imposed on each player perhaps spared one of us oldsters in adult rec a heart attack. That was the bright side, we told ourselves.

Fast-forward to 2024, and it’s the rink that’s on its last legs. The building is more than 45 years old and leaks. The refrigeration system needs replacing, and there are mechanical, plumbing and electrical issues. According to a presentation by the city last week, it would cost at least $3.2 million to continue operating it as an indoor rink.

The city has decided not to invest that money, instead, unplugging the patient from its faulty refrigeration and operating the arena this season as a natural-ice facility — essentially an outdoor rink with a roof. The rink will still be resurfaced by city staff, who will also supervise public skating and ice sports. Summer operations, which include ball hockey, will continue.

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But as any fan of outdoor, non-refrigerated skating knows — just look at the Rideau Canal in recent years — its future is grim. Dependent on Mother Nature as climate change nips the capital, its season will be unreliable, likely greatly reduced, and interrupted by inevitable thaws.

Somewhere down the road, according to the city, the Dome will be replaced with a year-round community space that could include a gym, as well as activity and meeting rooms. Public consultations, it says, will determine the community’s priorities and needs.

I suspect that public consultations might show that what the community needs is an indoor hockey/skating arena.

The West End Hockey League, for example, organizes recreational, non-contact hockey for about 800 youths aged four through 17. The teams play at four arenas: Tom Brown, Dulude, McNabb and Barbara Ann Scott, but according to league president Ben Lee, there’s no extra prime-time ice available at those rinks, so teams that want to prepare for tournaments or playoffs, or simply do some drills, extra practices or fun on-ice exercises, use the Belltown Dome.

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“I calculated that overall, we’ll be losing over 500 hours of prime-time ice availability without Belltown. That’s a major issue for us. If you want to play in the downtown core, there’s nowhere else to go, and the city has no current plans to build any arenas in the downtown core,” he says.

“So losing another rink with primetime hours has a major impact on the parents and families, pushing them to go to the suburbs.”

Another issue is the Dome’s location in an area of the city where many residents of lower socioeconomic status live. Do we really want to lessen their recreational opportunities?

According to the city’s Parks and Recreation Facilities Master Plan, passed by council in 2021, there should be one indoor ice surface for every 20,000 residents. It only makes sense to distribute them throughout the city and provide recreation facilities where people live. You know: 15-minute neighbourhoods and reduced reliance on cars — that sort of thing. Taking away an indoor rink that a community can walk to is just bad planning.

Sure, few hockey players are going to lug their equipment on foot, but for those just learning or looking to to skate, like maybe immigrant kids in that neighbourhood, a handy arena can make all the difference.

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But when Belltown Dome eventually gives up the ghost, it will leave Bay Ward’s more than 40,000 residents without an ice pad of their own.

According to ward Coun. Theresa Kavanagh, there’s been some discussion about possibly building a double-pad recreation centre on Queensview Drive, where OC Transpo’s Pinecrest garage currently sits, but that would be years away. Meanwhile, the city says it has no money, and replacing Belltown Dome doesn’t seem to be high on its to-do list.

“I’m frustrated,” says Kavanagh. “I don’t think we’ve done a very good job of saving up for the future with our asset management.”

Clearly not, especially considering that the Belltown Dome is being allowed to die without the city having a plan in place to replace it. Worse, it may, as former councillor and current Belltown Neighbours’ Association president Alex Cullen (who, incidentally is Kavanagh’s husband) believes, serve as the proverbial canary in a coal mine, portending similar fates for other arenas inside the Greenbelt.

Many of those arenas, after all, are even older than the Belltown Dome and will need to be replaced or undergo considerable renovations to bring them up to code and improve accessibility. Are there plans to do any of this, given the city’s dire financial situation?

If the city doesn’t make this kind of recreational renewal a priority, many urban residents will find themselves out in the cold, but with nowhere to skate.

bdeachman@postmedia.com

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