East Shore Park rink on Thursday. While professional hockey may have left New Haven more than 30 years ago, a charitable donation and the efforts of local athletics enthusiasts might make it so that more kids are picking up sticks and getting on the ice. Those local sports advocates detailed their vision for a revitalized East Shore Park hockey rink, at no cost to the city, at the Commission on Parks, Programs, Recreational Facilities’ latest monthly meeting, held on Wednesday at 720 Edgewood Ave. “We want to bring hockey back to New Haven,” said former Morris Cove Alder Sal DeCola, who, alongside his brother Mark DeCola and Jeff Russell of Hockey Night in New Haven, have secured a charitable donation to build the East Shore rink back up — at “no cost to the taxpayers of New Haven.” The donation would come from Leclerc Charity Fund. Program Director Mike Leclerc joined Wednesday’s meeting virtually. Russell said during the meeting that the donation would fund at least the next five years. Russell declined to state the amount of the donation or its exact duration and when the rink would be expected to be ready for kids, as the plan remains in early stages. He said that information would be released at a later date, when details are finalized. New Haven used to have the Nighthawks, a professional hockey team that played in the American Hockey League (AHL) and was affiliated with the New York Rangers. From 1972 until 1992, they played at the Coliseum. They then moved to Canada and are now the Belleville Senators. (The city also had two short-lived AHL teams after the Nighthawks: Beast of New Haven and the New Haven Knights.) “Is this ice hockey?” asked commissioner Harvey Feinberg. No, Russell explained, it’s street hockey. Kids can play in sneakers or on rollerblades. But the hope is that if more kids are playing street hockey, they’ll start playing ice hockey, too. “We also have an ice rink in New Haven, and we want to get kids interested,” said New Haven Public Schools Athletics Director Erik Patchkofsky, referring to Ralph Walker rink. “It’s two-fold.” “Our whole mission with this is to just get a hockey stick in kids’ hands and get them learning the game of hockey,” said Russell. Regina Wicks, Erik Patchkofsky, and Ron Ferrante. While DeCola and Russell were the ones making the pitch to the board, they had a small coalition of different youth sports experts supporting them: Patchofsky, Regina Wicks from the city’s Youth and Recreation department, and retired sergeant and Police Athletic League (PAL) Director Ron Ferrante. The team presented a vision of schools teaching kids to skate and taking advantage of the city’s two rinks, one that builds on existing partnerships between city schools and Ralph Walker for learn-to-skate programs. Hockey Night in New Haven has also been collaborating with PAL to raise money for its hockey program. “It has been a blessing,” Ferrante said about the partnership. “We have kids who have never stepped foot on the ice.” “Hockey is a sport our kids don’t normally have access to,” Patchkofsky said. With proper education and a free rink, that could change. Patchofsky said that if a student wants to play hockey in high school, they have to leave New Haven because there isn’t anywhere to play. There is currently one girl who plays hockey with Hamden High as part of a co-op to have enough kids to form a team; with a new partnership with East Haven High School, the hope is that boys might start playing too. Patchofsky also said the goal is for physical education teachers to learn too, so they can teach hockey in their physical education classes. Russell said that, for the East Shore rink, the goal is to also paint stripes on the rink that apply to sports other than hockey, like lacrosse, basketball, and soccer. “Make it multi-purpose,” he said. DeCola suggested that if all goes well, they would be “looking to find some land and build it on the west side, too.” Commissioner Emily Sigman suggested that the former shooting range behind Bowen Field could be a good place to look. “It’s a political beast for sure,” she said. But she thought it would be nice for what is currently “a big eyesore.” “It is possible,” DeCola said. “Things do happen.” Patchofsky also suggested that if the city’s plans to turn Ball Island into a park do happen, “it would be cool to have this be part of it.” Sigman said that she had recently visited Montevideo, Uruguay, where there is a roller rink in the center of the city. “It is the place to be,” she said, and there are outdoor exercise machines and benches nearby. It would be great, she said, to keep building on the work being done and think about how the rink could become “a public space that people are able to use in a variety of ways.” “Could we have rollerskate nights on the rink?” Sigman asked. “Rollerskating is coming back!” Feinberg asked: “What do you want from us?” “We really need your blessing to move forward,” DeCola said, in order to continue working with the charity and the city engineer. “This is for the children.” The motion was to support the development of a multi-purpose but primarily deck hockey facility at the slab at East Shore Park. The five commissioners in attendance — Feinberg, Sigman, Kenya Adams-Martin, Carl Babb, and Mary Ann Moran — approved unanimously. “I’m for it,” Adams-Martin said. “This is so beautiful. You got yourselves an angel,” she said about the donation. “Our youth should be cared for properly.” Parks director Max Webster and commissioners Emily Sigman, Kenya Adams-Martin, and Harvey Feinberg. Former Morris Cove alder Sal DeCola. East Shore park on Thursday. The post Hockey On The Shore? Puck Yeah appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less