Roanoke Struggles With Lack of Ice For Local Hockey Leagues

VT Hockey 2013  Virginia Tech’s club team must end its home season early due to lack of ice.
VT Hockey 2013 Virginia Tech’s club team must end its home season early due to lack of ice.

It’s an annual lament for local youth and adult amateur hockey players: come the end of January the only sheet of ice in the Roanoke Valley at the Berglund Center usually goes away. That means hockey players have to scramble to find ice for practice and must travel out of town for all games, even to venues in North Carolina and Northern Virginia.

Meanwhile says one parent involved with local youth hockey, leagues in states like North Carolina and West Virginia are skating into March. It also affects college programs: both Virginia Tech and Radford have club-level teams that must play their season ending games after January on the road.

The closest ice rink to the Roanoke and New River Valleys is the LaHaye Ice Center at Liberty University in Lynchburg – which makes for some late night practices when those teams travel from the NRV. The lack of local ice has also meant a steep drop-off in youth hockey league numbers – down to around 200 from double that in its heyday, said a parent.

The last time there was a rink available for hockey teams or public skating was at the old Ice Station on Thirlane Road – but that shut down in 2006. Over the years since members of Roanoke City Council and groups like Roanoke Valley Ice Advocates have promoted the idea of building a dedicated ice rink – but its an expensive proposition and there haven’t been any parties coming forward to take the lead to date.

Berglund Center general manager Robyn Schon feels their pain but says the lack of a professional hockey club in the valley – the Express, Vipers, Rampage etc. are long gone at this point – means it isn’t financially feasible to keep ice down past the end of January. February and the couple of months that follow are big for the former Roanoke Civic Center – the circus, monster truck shows, country music concerts, etc. The Berglund Center offers public skating sessions when it does put ice in every fall, in addition to renting time to the local amateur leagues.

Schon is no hockey-hater either: she worked for the National Hockey League’s Detroit Red Wings at one point and for minor league clubs elsewhere. It’s simply a matter of economics. “We rely on a lot of the events that come in January, February and March,” said Schon, “and the heavy run of family shows begins at the end of January. So we have to take the ice out.”

To consider putting ice back in for a few weeks in April, perhaps, after that period of heavy bookings lightens up a bit doesn’t make financial sense either said Schon, who has been working diligently in recent years to reduce the annual deficit that the Berglund Center complex – owned by the city – normally runs. “Its too costly just to put it in for 2 or 3 weeks of hockey,” said Schon, “If we had a tenant team the dynamics would certainly change.”

If that happened, like in the past, Schon and her staff would work with shows coming in to come up with dates that accommodate a hockey team. When the ice is down for a professional squad then local amateur groups could sign on to rent the rink out as well. “[Then] it would make economical sense.” But even if a new pro team were to sign on tomorrow, Schon said that would be a dicey proposition: “for the next three or four years all of those heavy dates [from January-March] are booked.”

One hockey parent suggested that perhaps local leagues could pay a bit more so the Berglund Center could extend the ice season – but Schon said that is probably “cost prohibitive.” It costs about $4000 every time they take up the ice and put it back, she noted. It looks like until someone is willing to come along and build a dedicated ice rink – or the Berglund Center once again is home to a minor league professional team – that local amateur hockey players will have to keep scrambling for home ice.

By Gene Marrano

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