It’s been a phenomenal year of growth at the Armour Ryerson and Burk’s Falls Memorial Arena and arena manager Graham Smith can trace that success back to several new programs.
When Smith was first hired in March 2020, which coincided with the COVID-19 shutdowns, he was tasked with getting more usage from the facility.
Smith and the staff did not disappoint.
For the first time in years, staff once again began to promote the arena floor for non-ice activities.
“This year we had a circus, ball hockey, and even roller derby,” Smith said.
“But we also created new rates for that Monday to Friday period that involved nonprime daytime use.”
The arena already has set rates for tournaments, hockey camps, and for large groups that want to rent the facility.
However, Smith said it had no program for groups of people in one to four categories that wanted ice time.
“So, we created a new rate for this grouping,” Smith said.
“And it hasn’t cost us any more money because staff are already here either doing maintenance, cleaning, or checking out the compressor. This means we’re not bringing in anyone extra to work but what we are bringing in is extra revenue.”
Smith says this new program has resulted in the arena seeing two to three extra days of rentals a week when before the program’s implementation there was no usage during the nonprime period.
He adds the program created 175 new hours of use for the arena covering the September to April period.
Smith and the staff didn’t stop there.
Shortly after taking over the management of the arena, Smith noticed that except for during the winter when minor hockey occurred, the arena saw very little activity on Saturdays.
“I don’t know why this was the case because Saturdays were packed with users at the arena where I used to work,” he said.
“But here we were lucky to get two rentals a day on Saturdays and then we would get the odd minor hockey rentals here and there.”
The type of Saturday usage Smith had in mind was activities like non-organized hockey or pickup hockey.
Town council approved the proposal and the arena launched it this summer.
“Nearly the entire day each Saturday has been full with six or seven rentals compared to the two or three rentals we used to get.”
Smith hadn’t fully calculated the summer usage hours because this period isn’t over yet but he knows the hourly numbers “are way up over last year.”
Smith said as word got around that the local arena had new special rates, more people called to reserve those days and times.
The new programs have proven so popular that Smith said there were rare instances when the arena had to turn people away this summer because of overlapping demands.
“It’s kind of a good scenario to have because it means there’s a lot of demand for our facility,” he said.
“But we really don’t like to say no. Our policy is to always say yes. I believe that’s another reason why we’re getting more rentals. We tell people yes and we’ll work out the schedules to accommodate more rentals.”
Rocco Frangione is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter with Almaguin News. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.
