Northern Bears seeking own dressing room at Leisure Centre

“We were assured that the new event centre would be proceeding quickly and further, that there was little point in investing the major expenditure for a dressing room (at that time.”

Pandemic inflation increased the costs of the Leisure Centre and the city has been working on ways to fund the event centre ever since, securing federal funding but not provincial funding.

Right now, the Bears play in the Art Hauser Centre, which also hosts the Prince Albert Raiders, the Mintos and the speeding skating club. The competition for ice time has occasionally resulted in double bookings for games and other issues like having to remove their gear after every practice or game.

“To continue this for an indeterminate time does not make sense when there is a manageable solution available,” Dyer said.

The team said there are two solutions, but prefers to have their own dedicated dressing room at the Leisure Centre. They would take use of Dressing Room 10 and also want the use of Dressing Room 9 on game days and some office space.

“We are agreeable to paying our fair share of costs including discussion of possibly paying reasonable rent for a dressing room and storage room at the Leisure Centre in addition to our regular ice rental rates.”

The second option is to build a dressing room addition at the Art Hauser Centre at a cost of about $300,000.

Given the age of the Art Hauser at 54 years, the team said this option doesn’t make a lot of sense since they would likely only get about 10 years of use before the building is closed down.

Council will discuss the issue on Monday during their regular executive committee meeting.

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susan.mcneil@pattisonmedia.com

by Susan McNeil

Northern Bears seeking own dressing room at Leisure Centre

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