Town of Erin council is hoping the replacement of the dasher boards at the Hillsburgh Community Centre will start the process for a more accessible arena to better accommodate sledge hockey.
At the June 16 meeting, council approved the tender to replace the dasher boards at a cost of $106,800 plus HST.
Councillors also discussed the possibility of upgrading the facility over time to appeal to more sledge hockey teams.
Facilities manager Graham Smith explained to council this is an opportunity to upgrade the facility for future sledge hockey use.
“We’re putting the sledge hockey boards in to promote more use for the sledge hockey,” said Smith.
He further explained the building in its current condition is not fully accessible for players or spectators.
“The building itself, the downstairs area, is accessible. They have push button doors on the washrooms, but for viewing, the stands and stuff like that, it’s not accessible,” said Smith.
“The dressing rooms are not accessible and through discussions with staff one of the things I thought was that we can’t just put these sledge hockey boards [in], we need to have a bigger picture as to what we want to do.”
He was looking to council to allow staff to price the accessibility upgrades to the community centre such as push buttons for the front doors, lower benches, removable plastic flooring for the sledges, and ramps for ice access.
“This project might take one or two years to get everything into place, but part of what we would want to do is changing the boards now, this is the time to do it, then we want to look at the whole building and what kind of accessibility we need in there,” said Smith.
Council can apply for an annual accessibility grant from the County of Wellington to recover some of the cost of the upgrades.
While all council members were supportive, councillor Matt Sammut wanted to see a report on the demand.
“I’d just love to see a report on the possible demand for sledge hockey. I mean it’s a wonderful thing to do but you’ve got to justify the cost we put in to ensure that we’ve got enough demand in the facility,” said Sammut.
