QFSC is Homeless

Last Friday, after over 60 years of skating at Memorial Arena, the Quinte Figure Skating Club was forced to say good-bye to our facility. Now, I've only been part of Quinte Figure Skating Club for 5 years, but it was still a weird night...and the emotions of those around me definitely had an affect. Some of the coaches I work with have coached in that arena for 25+ years...and some of them did their own skating in that building, too. All of that in mind, I'm sure in some ways, Memorial Arena felt like a second home.


The reason for the sudden closure - apparently there was major failure in the ice plant (refrigeration system) on Wednesday night. Now, this is a really old building, and these things happen...in fact, there had been issues last season; so, over the summer, the city dug up the concrete floor and did a few patch-up jobs, hoping to at least get through this season. But, that's not going to be the case. After the failure on Wednesday night, the refrigeration system was turned off and we were relying on the cold weather to keep the ice for a few days.

In the midst of all of this, construction is in full swing on the Quinte Sports Center - an addition that will increase the center from two rinks, to four rinks. If things had gone as planned, we would have finished the season at Memorial and then moved to one of the new rinks next year. Something we were looking forward to, but just not ready for, yet.

And, because this has all happened so suddenly, we are going to have a few chaotic weeks ahead of us. The city has had to scramble to find ice for us to use, as well as all the other user groups that rely on the Memorial. We only know where we're going to be for the next week, and we're in a few different arenas. I mean the important thing is that we have ice...but, we're going to miss the perks we had at Memorial...our own coaches room and the club room, two rooms we use to store supplies that help us run our program.

Hopefully the kids will all adapt, and enjoy skating in some of the other/nicer arenas in Belleville...hopefully they all find us, and don't show up at the wrong arena! :)