Ice Maker Fed Up Over Oval
By 250 News
Thursday, January 15, 2009 08:30 AM
Prince George, B.C.- He is the volunteer who has looked after the flooding of the ice oval for nearly a decade but Dick Voneugen has thrown his hands up in the air, saying enough is enough. “By far it is the public skaters and the hockey players who are the majority of users of the ice oval. The incident last year lost us some people, we lost some families.”
That incident last year, saw a confrontation between a speedskater and three youngsters playing hockey on the oval and then there was a collision.
The ice oval hasn’t opened this year, as the Ice Oval Society tries to look at developing a policy assess risk management, and develop a schedule to handle the mixed use groups and avoid conflict. Voneugen says this time of the year is not the time to be discussing risk management or access.
“In my opinion, we’re losing site of what we’re trying to do which is include the maximum number of hours people can go skating. If we are going to limit that to 4 hours in the evening, then we are limiting access to the majority of people who use the oval. Moms and their kids, ah daycare schools came here, school classes from high schools, they all came here, over 20 thousand visits.”
The ice oval this year does not have a hockey rink in the centre, but the hours of access are under discussion, “We originally had it opened from 7 – 11 like a city park. I would like to see something simple, not a calendar, so when the weather is good you can just say, hey lets go skate.”
Voneugen has resigned his position with the Ice Oval. “We had a great start and the potential is still there to make this work.”
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Posted by: DPJ on January 15 2009 9:48 AM