Hockey association 'scrambling' after West Kildonan arena closure

I learned to skate in this facility and I don't remember it ever being closed for an entire season. This rink should have been on the brink of preparing for the season. Now it will sit empty for the entire winter. Christian Taylor is the vice president of the Seven Oaks Minor Hockey Association. He says the association relies on West Kildonan Memorial Community Center for 575 hours of ice a season. But now they're scrambling to find space at other rinks. We have been on the phone and working to try to make up the shortfall. I don't know that we'll be able to recover more than 20% of that. Taylor says the association was initially told in late September that the rink's opening would be delayed. But he was told yesterday that the rink wouldn't open at all for the 2026-27 season. The city says recent inspections by the province found upgrades to the exhaust fans and gas detection system, among others, that would need to be finished before the rink could open. Taylor says there hasn't been much investment in improving the rink for a while. Anybody who has been in here over the last few years, I think, recognizes that it is getting tired. But that said, it is an important piece of infrastructure for this community. Ian McCardin is the executive director of Hockey Winnipeg. He says hundreds of kids will be affected and many will have to go farther for practice because there there's just a massive shortage in the area and you know it's it's going to kind of ripple out from that area to neighboring associations as the demand for ice gets gets higher. Both men say the timing of the announcement makes it especially hard to deal with as the season's due to start in just weeks. The facility was operating all of last season without issue or incident and so I think we would like a little bit clarity as to how we've landed where we've landed as well as just the timing of it the city says it's working on finding other arenas to help make up for the loss Alicia Wang CBC News Winnipeg