Panthers on the move for playoffs
The Pelham Panthers appear as if they will not have their usual home ice advantage come playoff time.
Panthers director of hockey operations, owner, general manager and coach Tim Toffolo says he was informed about two weeks ago the Accipiter Arena at the Meridian Community Centre would not be available for the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League playoffs which begin April 6 because the ice is being removed for the Fonthill and District Kinsmen Home and Garden Show.
“We have an ice contract for the year,” Toffolo said. “The Home Show wants to be in the main pad, the Accipiter Arena.”
The Home Show, which was cancelled last season due to COVID, is slated for April 7-8.
Vickie vanRavenswaay, Director of Recreation, Culture and Wellness for the town of Pelham, confirmed the ice will be coming out of the Accipiter Arena Sunday, April 3 when the junior B regular season concludes and that the Panthers will be free to use the ice pad at the Duliban Insurance Arena. That arena has the same size ice pad but does not have any permanent seating.
The Accipiter Arena features about 1,000 seats.
Toffolo said the Pelham Minor Lacrosse Association has also requested floor time in April but says both the Home Show and lacrosse could use the Duliban Arena.
“The Home Show doesn’t require any seats and lacrosse doesn’t require that many seats for their practices and games and they have the same floor dimensions,” he said. “Take the ice out of Duliban and run lacrosse and Home Show. That would make sense.”
But vanRavenswaay said the cost of doing that would be prohibitive, about $15,000 to remove and replace the ice.
“The issue with that is we will be only taking out (the ice) one pad and during the summer it is difficult to keep ice in the Accipiter Arena. The facility built for ice in the summer is the Duliban Insurance Arena.
“It is a real cost to the municipality. We have to look at that too. What is the best for the municipality operating-wise. We’ve had our doors closed and open so often. We try to accommodate as many community groups as we can because they all paid for the facility to be built.”
Toffolo’s frustration isn’t lost on vanRavenswaay.
“It’s a difficult situation and we didn’t take it lightly,” she said. “Tim is upset and he wants the very best for his team as well and we do as well. We love to have them but we have to work with everyone and sometimes it’s difficult.”
The Duliban can accommodate about 360 fans with bleachers that will be brought in, vanRavenswaay indicated.
“The juniors are still in their home facility and able to use their change rooms,” she said. “We will accommodate any way we can. It’s a ticketed event and we have had ticketed events previously at the Duliban Insurance Arena and it’s worked fine.”
Toffolo said moving to the Duliban Arena will hit the team hard in the pocketbook.
“We’re caught in a situation where financially if you look at Duliban side — they said they would put bleachers in — it’s not a junior hockey arena to play in,” he said. “Maybe we will get 200 if we’re lucky. Economically, we lose money every game, hand over fist.
“We’re going to be playing in another barn so we may as well leave this arena for the playoffs and go where we can draw and financially be stable. Why would we put ourselves in a financial predicament where we will lose our shirts?”
Toffolo isn’t quite sure what’s next.
“I don’t know where to go from here to get this resolved,” he said. “We tried to make our case to the committee and to staff.
“I don’t know if people don’t understand what junior hockey is and what the commitment they made when the junior hockey team is here in town.”
Pelham councillor Wayne Olson appreciates Toffolo’s predicament.
“Any successful community in southwestern Ontario or Canada has a hockey team and they get behind it,” he said. “My sentiments are with Tim. I want to see this succeed. He’s a great supporter of the MCC just by using it.”
The Panthers sit in sixth place in the standings with a 12-19-1 record and have an outside chance to finish as high as fourth which would give them home-ice advantage and as many as four home games in the first round.
“We never know how far a team is going to go in the playoffs. We’ve seen that for years,” Toffolo said. “When we were in Port, we were supposed to be out in the first round and all of a sudden we play seven in first and seven in second.
“The economic impact a municipality, a town, a city loses if they’re not willing to facilitate something like this is out of this world. They just don’t get it.”
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