The Trail Memorial Centre (TMC) - both directly and indirectly - was at the crux of last week’s governance meeting.
Trail council members heard from heads of the Trail Smoke Eaters Hockey Club, who revealed their plan for the upcoming season and later, the panel considered a report from the parks department regarding their reopening strategy for the arena.
Trail Smoke Eaters:
Rich Murphy, owner of the Trail Smoke Eaters Hockey Club, and Craig Clare, the Director of Hockey and Business Operations, addressed council at the June 30 meeting.
Murphy explained the team’s business plan and noted they are working on the development of a contingency plan should the upcoming hockey season not proceed normally.
Clare advised that the hockey club plans to move forward with an identification camp in August. In order to proceed with marketing, however, the team needed assurances from the city that the ice would be installed in early August.
TMC reopening strategy and ice installation plan:
Trail council agreed to install ice in the arena in the coming weeks.
This decision was made in anticipation of several hockey skills camps being offered in mid-August, and under the assumption that registration will be sufficient to support the annual camps.
Installing ice is part of the TMC reopening strategy which also includes a laundry list of pandemic protocols.
Those include: hand hygiene required upon entry and exit of the facility; access to change rooms and showers will be unavailable, and ice users will be asked to come dressed for the ice; occupancy limits will be imposed on all spaces; spectators will generally not be permitted; facility access will be limited; and designated access points will be identified for ice-users versus non-ice users.
As well, gatherings or events of 50 or more people will not be permitted until further notice is provided by the Provincial Health Office.
“The recovery of recreation services in a COVID-19 environment is highly fluid in nature,” parks head Trisha Davison noted. “As knowledge increases, new information is provided almost daily that needs to be considered for facility operations in conjunction with ‘Return to Play’ guidelines for sport,” she advised.
“Further, many groups are finding it very challenging to predict what their future holds or how to manage their activities when so much is unknown about how the COVID-19 situation will unfold in coming weeks/months.”