A New Spectator Facility For St. Catharines and the Ice Dogs

This week Niagara Ice Dog action moved from the ice surface to Council Chambers in St. Catharines City Hall. On December 5^th the St. Catharines city counsel voted 9-3 in favour of building a new spectator facility……a new home for the Ice Dogs!

While the action in the chamber may have been a much slower pace than a typical hockey game, the final vote resulted in cheers, high fives and hugs for Ice Dog owners Bill and Denise Burke.

For months the “Let’s Build It” campaign has been heating up to lobby city counsellors to go forward with the building of a new spectator facility for the city of St. Catharines. The Jack Gatecliff Arena, home to the Niagara Ice Dogs was built in 1938 and is the oldest and by far most dilapidated in the OHL.

http://intheobloggers.blogspot.com/2011/10/honeymoon-is-over-at-jack.html

Leading up to the much anticipated vote Ice Dog owner Bill Burke made it clear it was not feasible for the Dogs to stay in St. Catharines if a new facility was not built. This was not just an idle threat from a disgruntled owner but a fact backed by the Ontario Hockey League.

The most surprising part of the “Let’s Build It” campaign was how the Ice Dog players themselves became involved in the process. While current Ice Dogs will never enjoy the new facilities by the time construction is completed, many players became active in supporting the “Let’s Build It” campaign. Team captain Andrew Agozzino, Niagara-on-the-Lake native Alex Friesen and coach Marty Williamson made video clips to promote the campaign and encourage councillors to support a new arena. The night of the vote city hall was packed with Ice Dog players and team staff.

After the vote was finalized the twitterverse heated up in response to the news a new facility was approved.

Glad to hear st.catharines has decided to build a new rink for the #icedogs the city deserves it.. The #jack will always be my fav rink tho! –Chris Desousa

WOOOHOOOO, new arena for my IceDogs. I want it named the Ryan Strome Entertainment Center on Mitchell Theoret Avenue #imahappypandanow – Johnny Super Fan

But like with most good news there is a catch…..the motion to build a new arena came with a friendly amendment to change the name of the team from Niagara to St. Catharines Ice Dogs.

So while the decision of building a new facility has been decided, debate starts about a possible name change. Some people still have not got used to the change from Mississauga to Niagara, will fans, and most importantly, the Burkes, accept a change of Niagara to St. Catharines?

The next chapter of the Ice Dog off ice drama continues…………

Dog Bytes:

• Saturday night’s game against Kingston began with Mayor Brian McMullan and St. Catharines city councilors dropping the puck
• Saturday night’s game against Kingston was the beginning of a seven game stretch missing four players at Team Canada
• Ice Dogs lost 3-2 to Kingston Saturday evening with almost half of their roster filled with Jr. B players to replace regulars hurt or at the Team Canada Camp
  
• This week Dougie Hamilton signed an Entry Level Contract with the Boston Bruins
• Rookie Broderick Kelly racked up his first (and second) OHL career points this week-end with two assists
• They can't build the new arena soon enough.....during the first period, it took referee Rob Langdon and the two linesmen an extra minute or two to catch a mouse that made its way onto the ice.

The Jack

When the Mississauga Ice Dogs relocated to St. Catharines in 2007, the number one question on every one’s mind was how were Bill and Denise Burke going to make the old barn of an arena work for a financially successfully OHL team?

Now in the fifth season, the answer is just fine, thank you very much.

When the first Niagara Ice Dog team stepped on the ice for their very first home opener, all doubts were erased. With an opening sell out game against their new rival, Mississauga Majors, the relocated Dogs of that first season (think Cuputi, Legein, Swift, DeSousa) realized it was a great place to play after years of yawning fans in the cavernous Hershey Centre. The first season averaged 2,722 cheering, loud raucous fans (yes, I’m thinking of you Section M) and they led the league in 15 sell out games.

The old barn of an arena was not a detriment after all and in fact those early Dogs affectionately dubbed the arena as “the Jack.”

The Jack is short for the Jack Gatecliff Arena otherwise known as The Gatorade Garden City Centre. (or Double G, Double C as boss man Brandon Sudeyko refers to it) Built in 1938, it is by far the oldest venue in the OHL and is in dire need of repair or as most agrees - replacement. With mice literally eating away at concession profits, the need for additional space for box seats and the limited parking, no one can disagree the arena is in need of replacement.

But as the Ice Dogs enter their fifth year of exciting OHL play in the old barn, city council is finally seriously planning a new spectator center for St. Catharines. At last week’s council meeting it was unanimously voted to hire a consultant to help design and cost-out a new spectator facility for downtown St. Catharines. This will provide the Ice Dogs a new and improved facility, but at a huge cost. Currently the Burkes are paying a nominal $2.00 a year rent but if a new arena is built, Bill Burke has agreed in principle to a 20-year lease paying market value rent of $10,000 a game or $400,000 a year.

I am sure this will be a long process but well worth the wait for the citizens of St. Catharines and the players and fans of the Niagara Ice Dogs. But no matter what wondrous facility is built, will it ever be as loud and crazy as the Jack during a play-off run?

Dog Bytes:

• Bruins have sent back Dougie Hamilton to Niagara
• Blues have sent back Brock Beukeboom to the Soo (I’m sure they meant to say Niagara)
• Vancouver sent unsigned Friesen to AHL Chicago but he could still come back to Ice Dogs as over-ager.
• Former Ice Dog and Team Canada member Stefan Legein was released by Philadelphia Flyers

New rink for IceDogs a must for City of St. Catharines - For their own good...

It is disheartening to see that the city of St. Catharines is doing the bare minimum in regards to a new arena for the OHL IceDogs. The Jack Gatecliff Arena is currently the oldest rink in the Ontario Hockey League and offers IceDog fans run down concessions, washrooms, seating, corridors and more. The fan experience upon visiting the outdated IceDog arena is unfortunately, for lack of a better term, subpar.

The IceDogs have heightened the city with a tremendous amount of community involvement and charitable work. Not to mention, the team sheds light on an otherwise struggling St.Catharines downtown. It is highly disappointing to see that St. Catharines city officials are not doing more to accommodate them. If the city has intentions of seeing the IceDogs remain in St. Catharines they have no other choice but to step up to the plate and support the team with a new facility. It is to point of embarrassment that a region this size is struggling to support an OHL franchise.

The construction of a new facility is critical to St. Catharines as it would market the city and region and provide intangible benefits to the surrounding community. Using tax dollars to subsidize a sport complex will always bring rise to discrepancy; however the economic trade-off of a new facility will provide tax revenue to the city and surrounding areas. So, even the taxpayers who do not enjoy hockey will in some way or form reap the benefits. It is also important to keep in mind the increase of quality-of-life benefits surrounding the community. These benefits are often not included in debate over subsidizing sport facilities due to the fact they are difficult to measure.

A major quality-of-life benefit that a new rink would provide the city with is the knowledge that local government is putting forth effort to develop unity throughout the community. Ever since the IceDog’s inaugural season (2007) a growing sense of pride has grown amongst citizens of St. Catharines.
Seeing former IceDog players such as Alex Pietrangelo represent Team Canada at the World Junior Championships and expand his footprint in the NHL allows Niagara fans to relate back to the team with satisfaction of their efforts in developing high-caliber players. Not long ago, Windsor built a brand new facility which indicates the city appreciates the significance of sport and recreation to the success of its municipality. This being said, it would be appropriate to point out that Windsor is marked as having the highest unemployment rate amongst all major Canadian cities.

The IceDogs five-year lease of the Jack Gatecliff Arena is set to expire in 2012, a rather short time frame in terms of constructing a new rink. The ultimate decision of whether or not the IceDogs remain in St. Catharines is in hands of local politicians who hopefully realize that not only do the IceDogs deserve a new facility, but so does the community.

Vicky Grygar
In the O Radio blogging team