Where do you build ice pads when there is no land available - on the second floor of a high rise - why not?

By Pepper Parr

September 25^th, 2025

BURLINGTON, ON

Parents are in the process of registering their children for various sports events.

Fire on Ice – a girls team that did very well at the cahmpionship level.

Those with girls in the family are struggling to get their daughters a reasonable amount of ice time on a hockey team.  The boys get the time they need – girls playing hockey has grown significantly in the past three years – the number of ice pads haven’t grown.

The problem is there isn’t anything in the way of land that an ice pad can be built on.  The soon to be announced opening of the Skyway arena will add capacity but not near enough given the demand that a rising population will need.

The Parks and Recreation have made it clear that there aren’t going to be any new ice pads because there is no space.

Will Short

Will Short, president of the Burlington Girls Hockey Club  suggested at a delegation he made to City Council was that there is all kinds of space that could be created.

Put ice pads on the second and third floors of some of the 25 story towers that are being built around the GO stations.  They did that with the former Maple Leaf Gardens site in Toronto when the original rink was decommissioned and a Loblaws opened on the ground level, a basketball court and fitness centre on the second floor with the hockey rink on the third floor with the old domed roof.

It can be done – it has been done elsewhere – getting Burlington to do just that has been a challenge for the city.

Will is right – how do you get the Planning department to talk to the developers and suggest that a hockey rink in a high rise might justify a 30 story high rise.

It will be interesting to see where this idea (opportunity perhaps) might/could go.

Related news story:

Girls hockey club suggest council could do more to make ice pad time available