Sunshine Coast pickleballers aren’t keen on the idea of an extended ice season at the Sechelt arena.
The Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) is looking at a request from ice users to keep the ice sheet in place until May 31, starting in 2017. The ice users say it’s crucial for youth who participate at the competitive levels in sports like hockey and figure skating.
Tom Pinfold, chair of the Sunshine Coast Pickelball Association, appeared before the SCRD’s June 23 corporate and administrative services meeting to make the case for keeping the “dry floor” season intact.
“We’re concerned about this proposal that you have before you because we developed the program in part with your [SCRD] recreation department,” he said. “Pickleball is growing rapidly on the Coast. It’s played in a lot of venues other than Sechelt arena, including school gyms and at the [Seniors] Activity Centre in Sechelt.”
Pinfold told the directors the association has 200 members, there are 300 or more active players, and the Sechelt arena is a preferred venue.
“We get a high level of use at the Sechelt arena. We had, between April 9 and about June 11 – which is exactly the timeframe that would be affected by extending the ice [season] – about 850 player visits … We would be very concerned about losing that. It would effectively cut our playing time by about 40 per cent.”
According to Pinfold, school gyms don’t always have enough room to lay out a court that gives players the room they need to go back safely to hit a volley, and are prone to scheduling conflicts.
He also said the association’s ability to attract more than 130 players, most from off-Coast, to a June 4/5 tournament hinged on having both the Sechelt and Gibsons arenas available.
In a letter sent to SCRD directors ahead of his presentation, Pinfold said: “Ice users now get 14 months of ice time in a year at the two arenas. Pickleball, on the other hand, currently uses about five months of dry floor time at Sechelt (fours days per week totalling 14 playing hours) and a little over four months, a two-hour block once per week at Gibsons. Arena use is already highly skewed to ice users. Under the spring ice proposal, pickleball would be left with less than three months of floor to accommodate its large and growing body of players. If anything, it could be argued that pickleball should be allocated a greater amount of dry floor time, not less.”
A report on the request for a spring ice season is due to come to the SCRD directors later this month, and Gibsons director Silas White said they’ve already pinpointed some issues that need to be considered.
“I think the financial viability of it [spring ice] is going to be very challenging, for one thing,” he said. “Clearly the displacement of other programs is another challenge.”
One supporter in the audience urged the directors to remember that, when it comes to making the decision, they should think about the number of people involved, not just the costs.
