Veteran ice hockey tournament a boon for ACT economy

March 5, 2018

CANBERRA.—Players and teams from Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Newcastle converging on the national capital this week for the oldtimer ice hockey season’s first national tournament of the 2018 season will add substantially to the local economy, according to president of the ACT Ice Sports Federation (ACTISF) Tony Prescott.

“More than 100 players, coaches, support staff, officials and family members will converge on the Phillip Swimming and Ice Skating Centre from 9-11 March for the Canberra Challenge Cup,” Prescott said “and hotels, restaurants, wineries, taxis and bars will reap the benefit of their spend in the ACT.

“A new national ice sports centre, as we envisage it, with twin sheets of ice would cater for three or even four times that number of teams and players, and the economic windfall would exponentially grow from $100,000 to almost $1m.

“Oldtimer or veteran ice hockey is a cohort of the community which has the time, the good health and importantly, the money to spend doing something they enjoy: playing ice hockey, touring new cities, and spending liberally on everything from hotels to meals to entertainment.

“A new national ice sports centre would make this annual pilgrimage so much more attractive that we’d likely see new teams not only from other states and territories, but likely from overseas.  In days gone by, Canberra was hosting at least one overseas team or more every year, but with newer and larger ice sports venues opening up in Newcastle, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth, we are now overlooked.

“The Canberra Senators oldtimer ice hockey club is the second oldest veterans ice hockey group in Australia.

“It has a long history of participation every season in events around the nation, as well as hosting the Challenge Cup.

“ACT Ice Sports Federation welcomes the visiting players and their fans to Canberra for this great event, and encourages them all to play hard but in the right spirit, and to use taxis or UBER to get around town after their on-ice commitments are over,” Prescott added.

ACTISF believes a new national ice sports centre project in the most ideal of circumstances could like like this: consultation, planning and design in 2017-18; construction in 2018-19; and an operational facility sometime in 2019.

“With the government’s and Active Canberra’s support progressing the options paper, we remain on track,” Prescott said.