Put on your ice skates ... a new ice rink beckons!

September 5, 2019

CANBERRA.-- Today's announcement of the ACT Government's formal call for expressions of interest to build a new twin-sheet national ice sports centre is an historic moment in the long-established national capital's ice sports community. "We're incredibly excited by this news," ACT Ice Sports Federation president Tony Prescott said today "as we have worked cooperatively alongside the Territory government and the Bureau of Sport and Recreation for four years to bring this dream to fruition. “It is clear Chief Minister Andrew Barr and deputy Chief Minister and Minister for Sport Yvette Berry recognise the ice sports community desperately needs a new ice rink facility with two pads of ice of Olympic dimensions, and with due recognition of spectator and community needs.“We especially welcome private sector involvement and endorse a public-private partnership approach to achieve what will be a major piece of leisure and sport entertainment infrastructure in the nation's capital."Companies or investors with a vision for exciting events and other live sport entertainment, with an eye on the Territory's projected population growth, and with a strong commitment to community will find this opportunity a rare but highly attractive one given the unique demographics of the Canberra community. "We are ideally situated in a catchment area covering more than 1.5m people -- from Goulburn to Yass, the south coast of NSW to Cooma, and the ACT/Queanbeyan combined populations -- so a new twin-sheet national ice sports centre will have a great advantage from day one. "It will inherit an already existing and large local user base, which includes a number of grass roots competitions as well as elite level programs across ice hockey, figure skating and broomball, and with projected growth of more than 10% year on year.

"We envisage the expansion of ice sports in the ACT to include speed skating, curling, and paralympic ice sports such as sled hockey.

“We also want to develop a cutting edge program for empowering vulnerable youth as well as broader schools skating programs for local kids,” Prescott added.

With the expression of interest process open for six weeks, officials from the federation and its member sports -- Ice Hockey ACT, ACT Ice Skating Association, CBR Brave and Broomball ACT -- will be reaching out to their extensive local, national and overseas networks to promote this opportunity, and to tap every option possible. "This is a great opportunity for the local community as well as the broader Australian ice sports community, and we intend to make the most of it," Prescott said. “We are committed to bringing national and international ice sports events to Canberra in coming years, once the new facility is operational.”