NEWS & EVENTS

Group ponders new sports facility
By Mike Christopherson, Managing Editor
Crookston Daily Times

April 23, 2004 - Craig Morgan wants to make one thing perfectly clear: There is no active, formal movement underway to replace the Crookston Civic Arena with a new, multipurpose facility that would provide ample ice space (and time), as well as meet the recreational needs of other groups, such as tennis, in this community.

But, Morgan added, a group has met informally a few times to discuss the community’s options regarding such a facility.

“It’s just real casual at this point, with some hockey enthusiasts, skating enthusiasts, coaches and a couple financial people sitting down to talk about things,” he explained. “There’s about a dozen of us trying to figure out where we could go in terms of a facility for the future.”
The group had met a couple times when Morgan was invited to the Crookston Vitality Project retreat at the Northland Inn on Nov. 1. While many initiatives and potential projects were brought into the public light for the first time that day, no effort currently underway generated as much buzz as Morgan’s.

Morgan stressed that this isn’t about criticizing the current facilities. Instead, he explained, it’s about realizing the tremendous impact the events taking place at the civic arena has on the Crookston community.

“Unless you hang around with people like me who love hockey as much as I do, I don’t think many people realize just what those two sheets of ice do for this community,” he said. “That facility is absolutely huge for this community.”

Which is why, Morgan said, he can’t help but wonder how much more a new facility could do for Crookston. The raw numbers alone warrant at least talking about the possibilities: 230 youth hockey players, not even counting high school boys’ or girls’ hockey, or UMC Golden Eagle hockey; 265 figure skaters; more than 500 games taking place at the arena annually…the numbers continue to paint a similar picture.

“People are coming from out of town all the time, for most months of the year, for weekend tourneys and other games,” Morgan said. “They stay at our hotels, they eat at our restaurants, they buy gas. That level of impact demands that we at least ponder our options.”

First and foremost on the reasons to pursue such a project is the lack of ice time for all the youth involved in hockey and skating, he said. “That’s the only way to grow these programs,” Morgan explained. “The demand for girls’ hockey is just huge right now; the fastest growing girls’ sport in the state. We can’t disappoint those girls because we lack the ice time. We just can’t.”

It’s estimated that the Pirate girls’ team will mushroom by 24 new players, he added. “Girls’ hockey is the future right now, and we have to prepare for it,” Morgan said.
He sees the Crookston Vitality Project as something that can only help the effort as it finds its away along a certain to be long and treacherous path.

“I think that through the Vitality Project we can widen our focus a little bit beyond just hockey and things that take place on the ice,” he said. “Maybe we need to team up with some other people with similar interests and focus on recreational facilities as a whole. There has to be some people who would be willing to come together with us and share resources. I can think of tennis, soccer and basketball right off the top of my head. With our current facilities, we can’t grow these programs, especially if they take place outside. It just so happens that we’re pretty cold and snowy about half the year, which is a challenge.”
Morgan said that no financing options have been discussed whatsoever at this very early stage.

“If we’ve made any decisions or found any common ground, it’s probably that we would still want to use the current facilities and not tear them down or anything,” he explained. “We’d want to have a new facility that serves many purposes and the current facilities could complement the new one.”

Figuring out how to sell the concept of a new sports complex to the community is the biggest challenge, he said.
“I think the way we do that is the usage factor, and the fact that we have the two busiest buildings in the community for nine months a year, bar none,” Morgan said. “Then, think about how successful our tennis teams are. Think of what they could become if they had an indoor facility to practice in during the dead of winter? When you look at it that way, they’re at a disadvantage.”

Asked what action plan the group has, if any, Morgan cited the Vitality Project.

“I’d say that group, that effort, is our action plan right now,” he said. “I think we need to stay connected to that, stay involved in it, and see where it takes us.”