A group of on-ice organizations in Black Diamond are hoping for some changes at the Oilfields Regional Arena.

The groups are hoping to have the arena allow spectators into the arena during ice-times.

As of now, no spectators are allowed in the arena creating an issue for younger skaters getting ready both before and after their ice-time.

President of the High Country Minor Hockey Association Murray Ingstrup says this is an issue that ends up falling onto the coaches.

"It makes it harder on the parents of the younger kids, those families of the 5 and 6-year-old kids it makes it harder on those kids because they need help getting ready and help getting off the ice, it puts that burden back down onto the coaches and one or two volunteers."

Ingstrup says as of now they aren't allowed any spectators which isn't an Alberta Health Services rule but a rule specific to here.

"Currently we aren't allowed any spectators and by spectators, we mean family members of the [skaters] so we aren't allowed to have any. There is limited room in there from a physical distancing perspective, it would be lower than normal obviously, the arena said there is room for 20 in the stands. I think our biggest concern more than anything is that the guidelines don't say "no spectators" they actually provide a number of mechanisms where you can allow spectators and one of them is wearing masks and distancing."

Ingstrup and the Foothills Skating Club presented to the Town of Black Diamond Town Council hoping to see some changes.

Ingstrup says their main goal in the presentation was to open up the spectator area to allow parents to sit in and help with their kids before and after.

"Our goal to going there was to highlight the concerns we have with the Oilfields regional arena related to COVID and to show how they were impacting our association and all the members of our association, and we're ultimately going there to try to get some of the restrictions relaxed a little bit to make things a little bit easier for us to operate and make things easier on our members and families."

The associations involved in the presentation also included the Foothills Skating Club. Ingstrup says they have seen progress in the arena already and are hoping to continue in the right direction.

"We have seen progress and saw progress before the meeting. We spoke to the arena a couple of weeks ago about the use of the locker rooms. We do have that, according to the next stage we will have use of the locker rooms back which allows us to overlap groups as they are coming in and out. That shortens the time between ice times which gives us another 3 hours of ice time in the week which we can book or use for members. So we have seen movement on those two things but we haven't seen any movement on the spectator's side and that's another one that is high on the list."

It's just a waiting game now for Ingstrup and the rest of the associations in Black Diamond.

"They'll take a look at the draft guidelines that are coming forward for stage two that are proposed by arena management and we hope that the council can offer some opinions and get that relaxed a bit more so we can have spectators which is what we'd ultimately like to see."

 

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