Haliburton County Huskies representatives made their plea for maintaining summer ice at S.G. Nesbitt Memorial Arena during a Nov. 28 Minden Hills council meeting.
During 2024 budget deliberations, council directed staff to provide a review of summer ice usage for the 2023 and 2024 seasons. The township removes ice in mid-May to the end of June for annual maintenance of the ice plant, and ice is rebuilt at the beginning of July, slated to be available July 22, 2025.
Huskies’ owner Paul Wilson said his general manager and coach, Ryan Ramsay, runs a two-week hockey camp in summer for 110 mostly local players.
In addition, Wilson said the Huskies operate their rookie camp in May. “Ninety kids paying $375 each. We need that ice in May.”
Wilson added, “I know that some of you are not really hockey fans but many people in the community are thrilled that a small town like Minden is able to support a Junior A Hockey League team. Evidence of that? We sold 325 season tickets this year and every year we’ve sold that many. This year, we’ve received over $150,000 in sponsorships from the local community.” He added that paid “have been in the net positive revenue position.” Net revenue was $8,366 in 2023 and $12,642 in 2024. attendance is 400 to 500 per home game.
He said despite this, the club loses money and he has to chip in. But “removing $10,000 to $20,000 from our income source by eliminating summer ice for the rookie camp, I’ll probably have to sell the team.”
Owen Flood, an assistant coach with the Huskies, who owns APE training, said he moved his business to Minden to grow it.
“One thing slowing me down is the summer ice issue. I currently go to Haliburton to get summer ice, which, with only having one arena, is hard to get the ice time I require to do everything.”
Flood trains about 80 hockey players in the summer and said Dallas Stars forward, Matt Duchene, also uses the ice for summer training. He’d like to run and grow his programs in Minden. He estimated he spends about $10,000 on summer ice rentals in Haliburton.
Director of community services, Candace McGuigan, said when introducing new programs and services, such as summer ice rental programs, three to four years is required to build up the programming and understand the true costs, revenue streams and community and user group requirements. She noted summer ice in 2023 and 2024
McGuigan added, “in addition to the current summer ice users, the township is receiving new inquiries for summer 2025 and anticipates an increase in net ice revenue and further growth to ice rental programming. User groups are planning their 2025 and 2026 seasons, including their summer 2025 training and program locations. For these groups, it is important to have summer ice available at S.G. Nesbitt Memorial Arena.”
Councillors divided
Deputy mayor Lisa Schell said when they designed and built the arena, they wanted an NHL-sized rink and intended to have summer ice. Schell said they need to continue to give staff a chance to see if it works.
Coun. Bob Sisson said there were other expenditures besides electricity, such as staff, propane for the Zamboni, and other hidden costs. He said other township operations are suffering due to the amount of money being spent at the Minden recreation centre.
Director of finance, Wendelin Lonergan said she backed the staff’s report.
Coun. Tammy McKelvey said she was a Huskies supporter, and acknowledged the economic impact for Minden, but “we’re tasked with trying to come up with a balanced budget, and it’s costing us over $2 million to operate that facility. We can’t look at anything in isolation. This is not an antiHuskies thing. We’re dealing with a budget in which 19 per cent of our tax levy is going to that facility.”
Coun. Pam Sayne said, “it’s a little too late now to go back and say ‘we’re not going to do this anymore’. That building is not going to disappear. It’s a huge asset to us and we’ve got to take full advantage of this. And we have to find ways to bring this in to support the rest of the community.”
Mayor Bob Carter added, “if we are not losing money on this, this is something we should at least attempt to see if this is something worthwhile for us to be doing. We have to give it a shot.”
Council voted to maintain summer ice for 2025, and look to boost revenue.
