Team president and manager approach council seeking assistance
Mount Allison University’s ringette team says securing just a handful of weekend ice bookings each year could determine whether the club survives into its next season.
Members of the student-funded, student-run Mount Allison Ringette Club brought the issue to Tantramar council during a June meeting, saying the lack of available weekend ice time at the Tantramar Veterans Memorial Civic Centre yearly has forced them to host home games in Oxford, Nova Scotia. The tally for the growing, but underfunded team, has limiting opportunities to grow the sport locally, according to MacLean.
Hear the story below:
A growing team facing growing costs
The Mount Allison Ringette Club was founded in 2023 and competes in the Maritime University League. The club is led by president Emma Jackson and manager Rachel MacLean, who are both graduating after next season. Jackson introduced the club during council’s public presentation.
“Our team is fully run by students,” Jackson told council over their Zoom call to council, “This program is kind of allowing the university students to have the opportunity to continue playing ringette very competitively and getting education.”
MacLean then outlined the team’s biggest challenge.
“Some of the issues that we’ve been facing is, we haven’t been able to get ice at the Tantramar Civic Centre on the weekends for our games. We’ve been forced to schedule in Oxford. That costs us upwards of $600 every three-hour block. That is just no longer feasible for us, so we’re definitely looking to be able to play at home.”
Looking for a clearer process
Following the presentation, Councillor Alyssa Greene questioned whether university users should receive preferred weekend ice over local youth programs.
“Do I support necessarily giving adults who go to university .. ice time that is good, that would be best for youth who are playing hockey? Probably not, and you schedule your time. That’s, that’s part of growing,” Greene said.
After the meeting, CHMA spoke with MacLean, who said the team supports prioritizing youth hockey but wants a clearer process for allocating the municipality’s limited ice time.
“We pay the same amount as everybody else. We are curious about like a policy. Okay like who does get this first dibs? Now that we’re in our fourth year of doing this, we figured maybe we can have more to say.”
MacLean said the club needs only a few Saturday bookings each season to host league games in Sackville.
“There’s a lot of us that are gonna be leaving and we know that if ice time continues to be an issue, the team might not be able to continue, which is really sad because the league is growing too.”
Recreation plan already proposes a policy
During the June council meeting, director of active living and culture Matt Pryde told councillors that ice has traditionally been assigned based on past practice, but said the municipality’s Recreation Master Plan already recommends creating a formal ice allocation policy.
“Currently ice time is allocated basically based on tradition and past practices. One of the items in there (the recreation plan) is to create an ice time allocation policy, so that would help us be better informed on how to allocate ice,” Pryde said. He added that despite heavy demand from minor hockey, high school teams, Mount Allison hockey and other users, “it doesn’t mean that we can’t work towards solutions.”
MacLean said Pryde followed up with the team after the meeting and there has been discussion around working to find possible scheduling compromises.
Hoping to grow the sport
MacLean said she hopes the discussion leads to long-term opportunities for ringette in Sackville, even after the current leadership group graduates.
“Some of the best ringette players in the world, they’re just from Moncton, like Brittany and Jenny Snowdon. So New Brunswick usually has some of the best teams nationally when they go compete. So yeah we’re hoping to bring it down to Sackville. I mean it’s such a great sport.”
She said a formal allocation policy would help not only the Mount Allison Ringette Club, but any future organization seeking access to ice at the Tantramar Veterans Memorial Civic Centre.
About the reporter
Clinton Davis is a PT journalist/producer with CHMA News covering Tantramar (including Sackville, Dorchester, Port Elgin, Midgic and surrounding communities). He reports on municipal government, public safety, community events, local business, regional issues and ideas across Tantramar.
