Ken Dyck is the vice president of the East Hill Community Club. (Alison Sandstrom/paNOW Staff)

By Alison Sandstrom

Recreation

P.A. community clubs in need of volunteers

Mar 28, 2021 | 10:00 AM

They host hundreds of hockey games and practices per year, plus countless public skate sessions, but community club rinks in Prince Albert are struggling to find the volunteers they need to operate.

The ten community clubs scattered around P.A. are city owned, but volunteer run. That means while the city pays the utility bills and provides support in the form of grants, volunteers manage the day-to-day operations of the facilities, including bookings, fundraising, and hiring rink attendants and maintenance staff.

Ken Dyck, vice-president and facility manager of the East Hill Community Club, says he was one of around ten members when he joined the club’s volunteer board around 20 years ago.

“Now over the years our membership has declined,” he told paNOW. “Now if we have three or four people show up at a meeting, we’re doing good.”

The neighbourhood fundraised to build this indoor rink at East Hill Community Club in the 1970s. (Alison Sandstrom/paNOW Staff)

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Dyck says P.A. Minor Hockey’s move to a city-wide draft had a major impact on the amount of volunteers community clubs were able to attract. Where as previously, players would sign up and play with teams at their local neighborhood rink, starting around ten years ago they can be drafted to a team anywhere in the city.

“The kids get told they’re playing out of East End this year, West Hill next year, Crescent Heights the year after,” said Dyck, explaining that means parents don’t form a connection to their local rink in the same way they used to.

At the same time, Dyck says parents just seen busier these days.

“The younger parents, they seem that they don’t have time for these kinds of commitments,” he said.

He estimates the average age of board members at East Hill Community Club is around 60. All of their kids have outgrown minor hockey, although some members have grandkids on teams, he said.

The reduced amount of volunteers means more work for the remaining board members, Dyck explained.

“A lot of us are getting kind of burnt out,” he said.

Paul Ross, president of West Hill Community Club, says clubs across the city are dealing with the same challenge.

He says the board at West Hill has room for around two more members and is hoping to attract people who want to give back to the facilities their families may have grown up using.

“That’s why I’m doing it, because I’ve had four kids go through hockey and it’s just my way of paying back to minor hockey and the community for supporting these facilities, because they certainly keep the cost of hockey down in our community,” he said.

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alison.sandstrom@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @alisandstrom