Civic Center to host state hockey tournament

By TOM LAVENTURE

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Ironwood - The reconstruction celebration of the Pat O'Donnell Civic Center will continue into the new year as the facility hosts the bantam level state hockey tournament.

Discussion at the civic center board meeting on Monday including information from board member Matthew Sommer concerning the preparation for the U14 Bantam level hockey tournament to be held in Ironwood on March 11-13, 2022.

The state tournaments rotate throughout the eight districts of the Michigan Amateur Hockey Association, he said. The Upper Peninsula District was due to host the tournament for 2021-22 and while they usually go to larger cities, the new civic center facility helped to attract a tournament this year.

The hockey association will want to ensure that at least 160 hotel rooms in the area would be on reserve for the duration of the tournament, Sommer said. This is not necessarily a board issue, but the civic center should be informed and play a role in assisting with the logistics wherever possible, he said.

Some of these teams are going to be coming up on Thursday for the tournament that runs Friday, Saturday and Sunday," he said. "So the (Polar Bear Hockey) club is in the process of trying to secure and block rooms."

The work will involve contacting area hotels and ski resorts in Michigan and Wisconsin to see what is possible to reserve for the tournament, he said. It will be toward the end of the ski season and so it is difficult to know what can be done or the estimated numbers of tournament teams and their families.

"I don't know what the count is because it's changing as each day goes by," Sommer said.

The board also discussed efforts to satisfy hungry skaters during practices and open skating while the facility waits for its kitchen certification. The civic center staff have submitted the kitchen construction information to the Western Upper Peninsula Health Department, which, when approved, will be followed by a permit inspection with the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The process was supposed to be conducted during the construction, but apparently the primary contractor did not submit the information, according to Michelle Rigoni-Sivula, civic center manager. Because the kitchen is considered a new construction for being rebuilt in a different location on the same footprint of the previous facility, the commercial kitchen construction permit must be reissued, she said.

The board discussion led to concerns that because these types of state inspections tend to take quite a while in the western U.P., that discussions with the health department and MDARD might lead to approval to provide pre-cooked food that is steamed to serving temperatures.

Board member Jim Mildren said that he would contact Sen. Ed McBroom, R-Vulcan, to ask for his assistance with expediting the inspection process.

Board member Jim Collins said that one issue to be worked out in the meantime is to replace the kitchen stove ventilation hood. It was discovered that the hood was for a residential and not a commercial stove.

The board approved the annual Ice Crystals Figure Skating Club contract. The $23,200 contract is based on a $116 per hour of ice time to total 200 hours. The hourly rate is the same as provided in the Polar Bear Hockey Association contract.

Each hour over 200 hours will be billed at the standard arena rate of $150 per hour of ice time. The contract includes an agreement to move the annual figure skating program to March 18-20, 2022, to allow for the state bantam hockey tournament the week before.

The contract also included details on storage, concessions and cleaning.

The board also discussed improving social media posts with more complete information, fee schedules and hockey and figure skating schedules. Staff were encouraged to work with the city of Ironwood and Ironwood Area Chamber of Commerce to enhance the civic center pages on those websites as much as possible in order to eliminate the need to build a separate site.

The board accepted the resignation of board member James Panosso, who submitted a letter to the board saying that he is pursuing other interests at this time. The board included a thank you for service in the action for Panosso, who served on the board for approximately two years and stated he is not departing for any negative reasons.

In his letter, Panosso said that was proud to work with the board and believed they all got a lot done. 

"We have a beautiful new facility," he said in the letter. "I hope it continues to be an example of the hard work and passion that we all showed for this arena."

The next civic center meeting will be held at 5 p.m. Dec. 6 at the civic center.