The hockey community is at a loss now. Chaparral Ice is now closed. The building was sold and the new owners do not wish to keep it open as an ice rink. It will be something else.
Everything else is moving over to the one and only remainin ice skating rink in the community. Which means every program for figure skating and hockey will all be cramped up on a schedule at one rink left remaining.
It is personally difficult because that’s where I started my sledge hockey career so many years ago. I played my first game there. Scored my first of many goals on one of the two rinks that it housed. And my sister worked there as well. And now it is gone.
My teammates and I are now at a great concern because we wonder whether or not we will be able to continue the rest of our season with practices and everything else. I was told that they were not going to end the sledge hockey program, but getting ice time is probably going to be very few and far between. And that to me… is sad.
The program still isn’t as widely known across the area and I feel that it has the capability of gaining a lot of support from the local community, but they just don’t know that it is out there.
The game of hockey itself has become more and more popular in the state, but locally it doesn’t seem to have the support that it should have. Again, very sad.
There is the option of doing the program at the Cedar Park Center, but for one: that is a very long drive for several members of the team, and two: much more expensive to get ice time there. So I think that we are kind of stuck with the one sheet of ice as we battle it out to get ice time against the other programs who would normally use the ice.
IF we had the support, then I don’t think or believe that there would be much of a problem.
But it is what it is. The owners sold it, and the new owners want something different. So we carry on without it, and hold all the good memories that each and every one of us had within the building. Many late night practices, adult league games, and other special hockey events.
I guess the only thing that we can really do is hope for the best and see if whether or not we get enough ice time to finish out the rest of the season. Attendance for practices is always slow to start with, but by the end we always pull far ahead with many people in attendance.
The team and I know deep down that we are not a special priority. But we hold our own in some ways. Being at or near the bottom of the barrell though, sucks.
It is a bit of an ironic twist to begin with. Several of the players along with myself go out into the community and we talk and share about sledge hockey. The problems we have had with that, would be the fact that when we find someone who is really curious and interested in it… we never really know when our next practice will come. And now with there only being one rink, we REALLY won’t know for sure until we know for sure. If that makes any sense at all.
It is embarrassing to find someone excited to try it and then have to tell them, “Well, we don’t know when we are going to be on the ice again.”, or “We won’t be on the ice again for a few months.” Summer time is off season and we find ourselves in situations where we find people wanting to know more about it, but then we cannot tell them when to show up or where because we ARE off for the summer.
Therefore I don’t know what the future holds for the team and any remaining ice times or seasons in the future. We’ll have some fundraising events coming in March, but beyond that, we are unsure of when the next time we will be on the ice. Hopefully soon.
Keep your fingers crossed!!!!
Dambreaker 