The community celebration to mark the opening of the new arena at Leaside Memorial Community Gardens will start at 10 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 5.
It will include an open house, ribbon cutting, demonstrations from the three main user groups, BBQ, live music, and the first chance to skate on the new rink. Everyone is welcome.
The timetable:
10 — Open house begins.
11 — Welcome, greetings and ribbon cutting, followed by on-ice presentations:
- The skating club will give a synchro-skating performance.
- The girls’ hockey group will play a short “Timbits” game with some of their youngest players.
- The boys’ hockey group will do a short “passing the torch” game with some of the older players and younger players together.
12:30-2 — public skating (first chance to skate on the new rink), with BBQ outside and live music.
“Our first priority is to have the ice ready for our user groups on Sunday, Oct. 6,” says arena board chair Ray White, “and we’ll be ready.”
Some amenities like signage and painting will not be completed until later in the fall, he said, “but we all thought it was important that the opening celebration genuinely be an opening day. We will thank our community donors more formally and appropriately later in the fall when the donor recognition wall is completed and installed.”