Ice skates replaced basketball and netball shoes at Dunedin Stadium when it was retrofitted to include the Dunedin Ice Rink 20 years ago.
Since then, the Dunedin Ice Stadium had gone from strength to strength with the continued growth of ice hockey and curling being big contributors to its success, the facility’s general manager, Oliver Stephenson, said.
The 20-year milestone was celebrated with a skate at the stadium last month, with current and former volunteers, club members and more attending.
The former “Dunedin Stadium” was once the city’s home for hardwood sport before it was transformed into the ice rink in 2004 when ownership was transferred to Dunedin Ice Sports (DIS).
Mr Stephenson started in the role five months ago but was well aware of the significance of the occasion.
“It’s amazing. You look at ice rinks around the country and Dunedin is the premier one — and it has been for a while.”
One year after the stadium opened, construction on a four-line curling sheet began and it was opened in 2006.
“It’s pretty cool when you see them side-by-side from day one to now.”
The facility is mainly volunteer operated, with some volunteers being there since it opened, Mr Stephenson said.
“We have people that really care about the facility.”
He began the general manager role in July, returning from Vancouver, Canada, to do so.
He moved to Canada from Dunedin in 2016 for work and partly for ice hockey, so it made sense for him to now come into the general manager’s role.
“It’s been great to be honest, and great to see how many people really care about this place.
“There’s so many people that kind of live here. And people that give up and volunteer a lot of their time to be here, to coach [and] to organise events.”
The facility had a challenge for the future of “ice time utilisation”.
“More and more people want to use the rink. So that’s a nice problem to have.”
Three social ice hockey leagues with five teams each played at the rink along with the Phoenix Thunder men’s and women’s teams who played in the New Zealand Ice Hockey League.
“We feel like it’s a pretty big achievement even if we didn’t do a kind of a big carnival celebration.”
But a carnival celebration was planned for World Ice Skating Day next month and would tie into the 20-year anniversary, he said.
ben.andrews@odt.co.nz
