Oct 2009

The old home of the Portage Terriers and other local sports team is to be shut down.

Despite pleas from various minor sports groups, Portage la Prairie city council decided at its regular meeting Monday to decommission the Portage Centennial Arena (PCA) as an ice arena and consider other uses for it once the Portage Credit Union Centre is completed.

“I’m obviously disappointed,” said Nancy Brooks, with the Portage Minor Hockey Association (PMHA), in an interview. “I’m seriously disappointed.”

Brooks was one of four delegations at the meeting to try to convince council to keep at least one sheet of ice open at the PCA as all ice-based minor sports in the city are in dire need of ice time, and three sheets would help alleviate that situation.

Brooks presented council with a business plan to keep the west rink of the PCA open for 17 weeks out of the year with two options — the first costing about $79,000 and the second costing about $70,500.

The plan did acknowledge that to run the rink, the city would have to charge more to user groups, but that cost would be evened out for families by not having to travel as much for games and practices.

But the city simply can’t afford to keep any part of the PCA running once the PCU Centre is open, Mayor Ken Brennan said.

He told the delegates that shortly after the current council was elected, they sat down and had a serious discussion as to whether they would actually try to bring a multiplex to the city, and when they committed to it, they knew they would have to make sacrifices like not being able to introduce any other major projects or expenditures for many years to come, such as paving Park Drive or repaving Fifth Street S.E.

“We can’t do that; we have no money,” he said.

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