Bonner, Boundary, Sanders County
Bonner County
Ice Arena
how can i help?
How do I Donate?
why an ice skating arena?
how will the Ice Arena benefit our community?
how will an ice rink help local businesses?
how will the ice-skate facility interface with schweitzer mountain resort?
How can I help?
Our biggest need at this time is to spread the word about the Ice Arena to community members. This website is a great way to supply accurate information and to prevent false rumors and inaccurate murmurs. Please support our efforts and let us know your input. This space will be used in the future to elicit help on various issues so please “bookmark” this and check back. Also, watch the newspaper, come to meetings or write to the mayor to voice your opinion about the Bonner County Ice Arena. Thank you.
Help build the ice arena
donate
How do I Donate?
Send your support using any of the options here!
Make checks payable to:
Sandpoint Community Center Corporation
Mail to:
Washington Trust Bank
Sandpoint Branch- Attn. Eric Paull
509 N. 5th Avenue Ste. E
Sandpoint, ID 83864
Are Donations Tax Deductable?
Yes!
The Sandpoint Community Center Corporation is a 501(c)3 tax-deductible entity (EIN; 82-0516949 ) which allows donors to deduct any donated amount from their gross income (before taxes). The funding of community oriented projects such as the Bonner County Ice Arena project is exactly why tax-deductible corporations exist. For more information please contact us – we would be happy to share our vision and the details of the non-profit corporation.
Why
Why an Ice Skating Arena?
An ice-skating facility augments the winter aspect of our town. Synergy with our local ski resort will expand the reputation of Sandpoint as a destination resort. More importantly, the available activities will explode as a focus for local youth and will include after-school involvement. Also, family-skating, figure skating, curling, and ice hockey will increase community options during the long wet and snowy months. Tournaments and ice shows will fill hotel rooms and restaurants during the winter months. Thus, the arena will provide a huge financial boon to local businesses during the most difficult times of the year.
As a stand-alone entity, the Bonner County Ice Arena will raise enough money to pay for its own operation (based on evaluation of other facilities in Idaho and Montana in like-sized communities).
Impact
To our community
How will the Ice Arena benefit our community ?
This is an especially valid question from those who did not grow-up with a winter-time culture of skating. We ask that those who come from climates without ice skating opportunities keep open minds and look to other communities for the insight they may lack.
Local communities such as Post Falls, Moscow, McCall, and Salmon, Idaho are examples of towns where ice arenas have become a foundation of winter activities. The benefits reach beyond the inexpensive and entertaining activities afforded to families, youth, and visitors and include financial windfalls to local businesses. Tournaments and events attract locals and visitors and so provide increased traffic to restaurants, hotels, and retail stores.
The community’s youth will flock to the ice arena for multiple reasons. First, the arena provides inexpensive social activities for youth during inclement weather. This includes family skating and public skating – especially during the after-school period and on weekends. In addition, communities generally sponsor teen and high-school skate parties and other events focused on youth. There are also sports activities such as figure skating, speed skating, ice hockey, and broomball. As children who grew up with a community ice area in a small-town, we warmly recall memories of skating with our friends, first skating dates, and childhoods of hockey practices and games, camps, and tournaments. For many of us, this is a foundation of our youth and so it will become for Bonner, Boundary and Sanders County kids.
Ice is not maintained year-round, but generally from September through March (7 months). The other 5 months of the year allow for other uses of the building – which when completed will have spectator seating and amenities such as concessions. Other community uses include concerts, car shows, fairs (rodeos, animal shows and auctions), farmers markets, indoor soccer, in-line skating, roller hockey.
Local Economy
How will an ice arena help local businesses?
There are direct benefits to our business community which will become evident quickly. Other towns are eager to share their stories of initial reluctance and confusion. Most western mountain-town inhabitants in Idaho did not grow up in a “skating” culture. But these towns soon found increased revenue and excitement.
The reason for the other town’s success is that one function of an ice-skating facility is to host ice hockey tournaments (both youth and adult) and figure skating events several times during the winter. These events attract teams and their families from across Idaho, Washington, Montana, as well as from nearby Canada. Like the Pend Oreille Cup Soccer tournament, these events will fill the hotels and restaurants and stimulate retail sales in the area. The impact to our community should not be underestimated, especially during the slowest times of the year.
Our plan has always been to include one of these exciting tournaments during the Winter Festival to add more variety and excitement to this seasonal Sandpoint event. Secondly, synergy with our local ski resort means that visitors to our mountain will be enticed to come to town while enjoying their ski vacations. Third, local jobs will be created within the facility.
Resort
How will the ice-skating facility interface with Schweitzer Mountain Resort?
The management of Schweitzer Mountain Resort is supportive and excited over our efforts to build the Bonner County Ice Arena in the community. It is very common for these two entities- ski resort and ice-skating rink – to cooperate in other towns across our country. Schweitzer understands that visitors who arrive to ski are often engaged in other winter sports and when conditions are difficult on the mountain due to inclement weather. It is a tremendous benefit to have another outlet for enjoyment. Currently Schweitzer supports one of the two adult hockey teams which play in Post Falls, and promises involvement in our project as we move forward. The synergy of this cooperation will be advantageous for all members of our community.
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Mailing Address: SC3 | Email: connect@sandpointice.org |