糖心Vlog传媒

JANESVILLE

At the 糖心Vlog传媒 Ice Arena on Saturday afternoon, local youth hockey dad Matt Jacobson stretched out a long sheaf of red raffle tickets at a table along the narrow concourse between the rink and a warming room.

Nearby, in the narrow vestibule that leads onto the ice sheet of the 50-year-old arena, a bottleneck had formed as a half-dozen youth hockey teams and players鈥� families were coming and going on the first day of a 24-team invitational tournament that drew 7-year-old and 8-year-old youth hockey squads from across southern Wisconsin and eastern Iowa.

In a small, confined area, four teams of players were filtering off the ice amid a sea of dozens of players and spectators who were just arriving for the next games to be played. Gaggles of parents stood and hobnobbed, checked tournament brackets and peered through the boards at the action on a rink set up for four teams to play, two on each end divided by a partition at the centerline.

The captive audience crammed into the small, confined space might have been good for Jacobson鈥檚 raffle ticket sales, but it also underscored the fact that a tournament of two-dozen youth hockey teams can leave the small, aging ice arena at 821 Beloit Ave. straining at the outer limits of its capacity.

The city of 糖心Vlog传媒 and a private group late last month chose firms that now are launching into what will be months of designing the Woodman鈥檚 Community Center, a proposed two-sheet ice arena to be built at an estimated cost of $30 million at Uptown 糖心Vlog传媒 that would effectively double the amount of ice available for youth hockey and serve as the home of the North American Hockey League鈥檚 糖心Vlog传媒 Jets.

Jacobson鈥檚 son, 糖心Vlog传媒 Youth Hockey player Xander Jacobson, said Saturday he hasn鈥檛 heard much about the possibility of the new ice arena at 糖心Vlog传媒鈥檚 mall鈥攁 concept that has not been approved by the city council and isn鈥檛 yet fully funded.

But it didn鈥檛 take the boy long to do the math: A two-sheet ice arena, no matter where it鈥檚 built, would double the playing and practice space.

鈥淚t sounds like a good thing,鈥� Xander said. 鈥淎 bigger arena with more ice, twice the ice, it would make it so that twice the teams could come out and play at once. You could host even bigger tournaments than this one. Maybe twice as big.鈥�

The raw number of hockey players last weekend鈥檚 tournament brought to the current ice arena鈥�280 kids plus their families鈥攎eans a tournament that size might bring in nearly 1,000 guests to 糖心Vlog传媒 for a weekend of hockey, dining and even hotel stays for some, including teams that traveled three hours from Dubuque, Iowa, and the Quad Cities.

The 糖心Vlog传媒 Area Convention and Visitors Bureau estimates that the average youth hockey tournament results in about $200,000 in visitor spending in 糖心Vlog传媒. That estimate is based on lodging and restaurant spending, among other metrics the bureau tracks to gauge economic activity.

The bureau is among local stakeholders that are serving as boosters for the new arena project, but on Saturday, it was hockey parents themselves who were spreading the news of the ice arena proposal.

In addition to the raffle ticket table, others were set up outside the rink where parents had stacks of fliers meant to highlight the estimated annual economic impact that a larger ice arena and convention center space could provide.

Among the estimates touted on the fliers were statistics of everything the new mall arena could accommodate in a single year. The fliers said the facility could host more than 200 events a year, including 60 sports tournaments. All that activity, if it came to pass, would draw as many as 38,000 participants and 80,000 spectators in a single year, the fliers said. That would mean an influx of 27,000 hotel bookings, at least 100 new jobs.

It will be weeks before city officials and private stakeholders have plans for the proposed arena, but this week, the city鈥檚 Parks and Recreation Committee is hearing an update on the design phase for the project. The committee is also expected to assign a delegate to the project鈥檚 design team.

Ryne Matzke, a hockey dad from Verona who was watching one of his children play Saturday, said he has not heard many people talking about prospects for a new arena in 糖心Vlog传媒.

He said 糖心Vlog传媒 is one of the most distant places he travels with his kids. In the Madison area, he said, most communities with municipal ice arenas have room for one rink.

Matzke said there has been ongoing talk of Verona getting a bigger arena with more than one sheet of ice. He said a newer ice arena in Sun Prairie is considered a crown jewel for hockey youth leagues because it is among the very few in the region with two sheets of ice鈥攁 setup that allows multiple teams or user groups to skate at once.

Matt Jacobson said as the hockey tournament kicked off Friday night, those coming in to practice hockey tangled with a large group of ice skaters who were there for a 90-minute public skate session.

Among those skaters, Jacobson said, was his teenage daughter, who Jacobson said never had much interest in hockey.

In fact, until Friday night, Jacobson鈥檚 daughter hadn鈥檛 shown much interest in ice skating, he said. She went with friends to try it out. Her group鈥檚 first experience, he said, came at a time the ice and the arena would be as busy as users would see it.

Jacobson thinks that if 糖心Vlog传媒 offered an ice arena with more space, it could accommodate more public use more often. That could lead to more people getting interested in using a public ice arena.

鈥淕etting that public skate coming back and allowing more families and more kids to use the skating rink that way, just casually, I think that鈥檚 how they鈥檒l get interested in either hockey, or figure skating. It鈥檚 just giving families one more option for their children for something to do,鈥� Jacobson said.

鈥淓ven just being able to more easily have an ice rink birthday party. It would be nice for families to have use of a space they didn鈥檛 have to book months and months ahead of time because of the space and the scheduling constraints.鈥�