COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho – If you or your kids like to skate or play hockey year round, it’s hard to find a rink that’s open and available. Frontier Ice Arena in Coeur d’Alene is fundraising to build another rink.
Many parents drive to the rink early in the morning or late at night. There aren’t many ice rinks that are open and available, making it difficult for kids to even start skating.
“Most Saturdays we have to go into the party room and skate off-ice,” said Ruby Spoonhour, a figure skater.
Frontier Ice Arena has already raised nearly $2 million to build a second rink.
“There’s only a couple teams that I know of from here but if we added another rink, I’m sure there’s going to be one more added. There’s certainly a lot more youth hopping into the game since the academy popped up. I’ve noticed a lot more adults playing beer league since last year,” said Tyler Karchut from the Coeur d’Alene Hockey Academy.
A second sheet of ice would allow the arena to host tournaments and competitions. That would benefit the entire Coeur d’Alene community.
“With another sheet of ice, we can have 16 teams come in. So that provides a lot of hotel rooms and restaurants and shops,” said Vince Hughes, President of the Kootenai Youth Recreation Organization.
Players from the Coeur d’Alene Hockey Academy play in a Canadian league, which requires a lot of travel since they can’t host tournaments. Many figure skaters also have to travel to out-of-state competitions.
“We currently host four events a year and then the club in Spokane hosts one competitive event a year. So our skaters are driving to Missoula and McCall and the west side and that gets really expensive for a lot of families,” said Moe Herr, Skating Director of the Spokane Figure Skating Club.
The group still needs to raise around $3.5 million to complete the project. The city of Spokane Valley is also working towards building an ice arena with two rinks.
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