There’s light at the end of the tunnel for north Calgary residents stickhandling for the past six years to bring an outdoor community rink rehabilitation project to life.

Last week, the Calgary Executive Committee approved a Council Community Fund request for $300,000 to help the Sandstone-MacEwan Community Association (SMCA) execute a rink renovation plan.  Final approval is needed at an upcoming meeting of council.

Residents in Sandstone–MacEwan have been pressing since 2020 to retool a community rink that was built back in 1991.  They’d identified the rink rebuild as a need back in 2018 during a lifecycle review of the site.

Last summer, for the third time, the SMCA had to postpone the rink build as they hadn’t yet met their – at that time – $750,000 fundraising target.

Now, with the likely city help, and some other grant irons in the fire, the SMCA is closing in on their fundraising goal. It could leave them with roughly $100,000 delta on a now-$1 million project.

“If we get the…CCF (Council Community Fund) from the city, the light’s at the end of the tunnel kind of thing,” said SMCA rink rebuild co-chair, Jennifer Bidlake Schroeder.

Bidlake Schroeder said that due to cost increases it has been challenging to continue to find additional funding sources to bridge the gap.

“We don’t have enough money yet. Even after that $300,000, because of the cost increases, our estimate increases for the rink,” she said.

You can get on side very easily, said Coun. Mian

The site, while dubbed a rink rebuild project, serves the community of roughly 12,000 year-round. Basketball programs operate at the site during the warmer months, along with other community association programming, like ball hockey.

Ward 3 Coun. Jasmine Mian said she’s proud of the work done by the community members to drive the project forward.

“When you see the community working that hard, you get on side pretty easy and I hope that Council sees what I see,” Mian told LiveWire Calgary.

“This is an attempt to save an existing amenity and it’s really important that we don’t just allow these amenities to be torn out when they’re at the end of life, but that we are able to reinvest in them.”

The project is shovel-ready for the summer construction season, Mian said. They hope to avoid further cost escalation and any conflict with the neighbouring Catholic and public schools.

Bidlake Schroeder said that all it requires is collecting bids for the construction and they’re ready to break ground on the project. But they’re not ready to count their goals before they’re scored.  They still need to secure that final bit of community funding to move the project ahead.

“We have all the plans down, we know what we want to do,” she said.

“It’s just a little bit of a hurry up and wait to see if we’re going to make it across the finish line or not.”