The weather didn't dampen spirits on the campus of Cape Breton University on Tuesday, as the official ground-breaking was held to mark construction and renovations to the nearly 40-year-old facility.
“The bones of this building are solid and the stories here are unending and we're going to bring this place back to life,” said Annette Verschuren, Cape Breton University spokesperson.
The new foot print will expand to include space for health and counselling services for students, a new fitness facility and a walking track, along with a regulation size ice surface.
It will be home to the Cape Breton Blizzard Female Hockey Organization.
“We have a whole rink for ourselves to play on, because we've been jumping from rink to rink to find some sort of rink to play on against other teams,” said female hockey player Isla McInnis.
Ice-time will no longer be an issue for the girls, who have had to compete against boys and men's teams to find a place to play.
“Even last season I didn't quite have enough ice to run our programming the way it fully needed to be. We were searching for ice every single week,” said Christina Lamey, Cape Breton Blizzard president.
The Blizzard Hockey Organization was winners of Kraft Hockeyville in 2022, and will host a National Hockey League game between Florida and Ottawa in October at Centre 200.
The $250,000 prize money was used to purchase a new energy efficient ice plant and soon, an electric Zamboni.
“I'm really excited about this and what it might mean for girls and women's hockey across the country. It makes a big difference. As girls associations grow and you start to have large girl’s hockey associations, they need to have the facilities that go with that,” said Lamey.
Construction of the new complex is scheduled for completion in December 2024.
