Trouble getting indoor ice time in Edmonton? There's not enough of it to go around
CBC
Shawn Melnyk and his wife, Carmen Vaugeois, sit down every Sunday to plan their week around hockey practice for their two boys.
Demand for prime-time ice hours is high, so an early 4:45 p.m. practice across town can throw a major wrench in the family's plans.
That's when the calls to grandma and grandpa start, or team chat messages looking for carpool solutions roll in.
"If I'm working, say off-site or out of town, it's extremely difficult to get to. And then if one parent is at home managing a whole household by themselves, it's extremely, extremely difficult," Melnyk said. "It definitely requires a village in that case."
The early kids' practices are a symptom of a larger problem in Edmonton.
There's a shortage of available ice sheets, and it's compounded by the reality that many aging arenas, first flagged for replacement more than 15 years ago, are still in use.
In July, city council got a memo on the arena facilities capital development plan from Jennifer Flaman, deputy city manager in charge of community services.
Flaman's report said the city provides 31 ice sheets in 22 facilities — one sheet for every 39,000 residents. By comparison, the City of Calgary operates 54 ice sheets within 34 facilities, or one sheet for every 23,000 residents.
Administration recommends replacing aging single arenas with twin or multi-surface arenas. Options for consideration will go into the 2027-30 capital budget submission, the memo says.
"There definitely is a shortage," said Jeremy Haluschak, executive director of Hockey Edmonton, the governing body for minor hockey in the city.
"It's not just hockey — it's ringette, it's figure skating, speed skating.… We're not getting the supply that we're asking for."
Between 1958 and 1975 the city built 15 single arenas. The average age of those arenas is now 57 years and some are nearing the end of their useful life.
In 2009, Edmonton city council approved a strategy to close six aging single arenas and replace them with three twin-arena facilities. Today, five out of six of those aging arenas are still in operation and have not been replaced.
But as the city population has grown significantly, so has demand. The report from Flaman says the city accommodated 82.5 per cent of requested demand during the winter 2023/24 season.
Run 3 Space | Play Space Running Game
Traffic Jam 3D | Online Racing Game
Duck Hunt | Play Old Classic Game
Red-winged blackbirds are dive-bombing residents of one Toronto neighbourhood, swooping down and pecking at their heads, but an expert says there's not too much the locals can do as the birds protect their nests.
The Cree First Nation of Waswanipi has officially broken ground on its hotel, marking a milestone for the northern Quebec community after decades of anticipation.
Former prime minister Jean Chretien says dignitaries attending next week's G7 leaders summit in Alberta should avoid engaging with the "crazy" from U.S. President Donald Trump.
The area burned by wildfires so far this season is the second-largest on record in Canada, according to government data.
Environment Canada has issued a severe thunderstorm watch for all of Prince Edward Island.
The Canadian citizen believed to be on an Air India flight that crashed shortly after takeoff is a dentist from Mississauga, Ont., her family has confirmed.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and three of her ministers got an earful on Wednesday night from southern Alberta locals at a rowdy, hours-long town hall to discuss the province's coal policy.
Federal Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu says she's going to put Canada Post's latest offers to unionized postal workers up for a vote in the hope of breaking a longstanding impasse between the parties.
Financial disclosures submitted to Newfoundland and Labrador's Liberal Party show Premier John Hogan received close to three times the amount of money his opponent, John Abbott, brought in during the leadership campaign — including large-scale donations from groups that benefit from government contracts.
Outside a hockey arena in the Copper Cliff neighbourhood of Sudbury, Ont., there's a group of three interconnected trailers with the Statistics Canada logo blazoned at the top.
In Victoria Joumaa's Halifax home, there are bedrooms furnished with single beds — soccer balls on the nightstands in one room, a pink owl clock and a plush panda toy in the other — with clothing in both closets, all for children who do not live there.
If you stand in the trees and brush between Trout Creek and Kurtis Carter and Kassandra Chudiak's home in Sussex, you can hear water rushing by.
Montreal and provincial police have made several arrests Thursday morning targeting the Rizzuto family in the Montreal area, Radio-Canada is reporting.