
Interior of the Art Holding Memorial Arena in Chase. (Photo via Art Holding Memorial Arena)
The Village of Chase will use the $100,000 it got from the Vancouver Canucks to make a number of renovations at the 25-year-old Art Holding Memorial Arena.
CAO Joni Heinrich says one of the main areas of focus will be new changing rooms for women.
“We have few, very few changing rooms as it is, and they are always really well used, and we’ve got an increase in women who are playing hockey and we would definitely want to promote that,” Heinrich said, on the NL Noon Report.
The Chase arena was the winner of the “Game Changer Reno” contest, which was a partnership between the Canucks and the Labourers International Union of North America (LiUNA) Local 1611.
Heinrich says it will likely be a few months before the renovations can get underway.
“Because we are a public entity, we do have to go through certain processes and so we will need to get some design work done, figure out what exactly it is that we’re looking to do, and how we want it to look and where its going to be located in the arena,” Heinrich said.
“We then have to go out to a public process to hire someone to actually do the work.”
The Art Holding Memorial Arena is home to the Chase Heat of the KIJHL, as well as the Chase Minor Hockey Association, and the Shuswap Skating Club.
“It has been maintained over the years and repaired and that sort of thing but there are significant changes that we would like to do with the arena,” Heinrich said. “We were very surprised [to learn that we won]. There were very few people that were informed about this, and the surprise was awesome.”
Heinrich also said it is possible that the Village of Chase will use this unexpected windfall to take a look at all of its recreational facilities and activities.
“We have been discussing that quite a bit because while the arena is an integral part of our community, it is not the only recreational facility that we have,” she said. “We own the curling club that we lease back to the curling club people but we also have a golf course.
“We have a number of different activities and facilities to promote recreation, and so we’d like to take a look at how best we can capitalize on this particular project to make sure that the entire community is well-served.”