Skates on for Rotorua 'ice' rink plans

ON ICE: Dammon Paul with his daughter Emma, 9, has plans to bring ice skating to the masses. PHOTO/STEPHEN PARKER 220114SP4

Rotorua could market itself as New Zealand's ice hockey destination with plans for an ice rink, snow slope and hotel in the pipeline.

Dammon Paul's Ice For Life project is two years in the making and by next Christmas he plans to have a synthetic ice rink set up in the city.

The synthetic ice set-up is already used in the United States by the Florida Panthers NHL team as well as for recreational purposes in Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Australia. It requires no water and no power.

The idea has been welcomed by Rotorua Mayor Steve Chadwick, who said it was a good fit with the city's thermal (fire and ice) ties. A community youth group has also welcomed the idea.

Mr Paul plans to have the public rink set up by Christmas and then move it to a school in February 2015. The rink, snow slope and hotel project is about three years away, but Mr Paul said it already had support from the New Zealand Ice Hockey Federation, which will channel games through to Rotorua.

"Our focus is getting rinks into schools and getting young people engaged," he said.

"I know ice rinks. I was ice skating for 15 years. when the ice rink came down here two years ago I was teaching kids how to skate. I ended up teaching kids who were otherwise hanging around on the street. They were then teaching everyone else. It doesn't matter if they've got low confidence or a lot of confidence, once they learned to skate properly they absolutely enjoyed it and they came back nearly every single day.

"This is a big positive. We can teach kids how to play ice hockey on it - it's not going to cost the schools a cent. We're hoping to get as much of the community behind it as possible."

Mrs Chadwick met with Mr Paul last winter when the ice rink was set up for a second year. She said it was one of the ideas put forward in the Rotorua 2030 vision. "This is how biking started in Rotorua and I think it's fantastic," Mrs Chadwick said.

"The city needs other things as not everyone wants to just focus on cycling. It's something that a lot of young people have said they enjoyed. It would be a wonderful asset for a city to have but it has got to first get into the district plan."

Te Waiariki Purea Trust has worked with Rotorua youth for 26 years and now runs Free Parking, a project aimed at providing free sports activities for young people. "I reckon this will bring life to the city," Free Parking co-ordinator Maraea Pomana said.

"Free Parking is about free sports and activities, so anything that is free, healthy and gives extra skills would be beneficial to youth. I'd love it. We don't have anything like this and I know when the ice rink was here the youth loved it."

Mr Paul said he wants the initial rink, which is made up of panels able to be manipulated into any shape, to be available to students in the day and then opened up to the public, who would pay for access, in the evenings. He said there would be opportunities for people to learn ice hockey or advanced skating.

"If you haven't experienced it then it's hard to see how it will help this area but because we've done it, we know that it works. We also want to do things like celebrity races through Eat Streat."

Mr Paul said he was waiting to hear back from the rink manufacturers if it would be suitable for rollerskates or rollerblades.