Collingwood Council voted down a motion by Councilor Mike Edwards to move forward with discussion to consider funding the construction of a roof to cover the town's outdoor ice facility.

Councilor Edwards described the outdoor ice surface as being an underutilized facility, adding that with a proper roof, it could go a long way to help solve the ice time shortage presently experienced by minor hockey and recreational user groups in the community. "We could almost guarantee the renting of the ice without fear of the weather conditions" Edwards stated while telling council that the facility could generate additional revenue. "When we look at the amount of ice time that we need in this town and the people that go out of this town to pay for ice time, we're wasting an asset that we have" Edwards said. "We know that a lot of adult groups have lost ice time and if we could guarantee ice time as we could with a roof over the outdoor rink the likes of minor hockey could schedule some of their practices there, and other groups as well" Edwards added.

Councilor Edwards told council that a funding partner may come forward to propose working with the town to upgrade the outdoor facility. "I also understand that there is a group that is interested in partnering to put a roof over the rink and I guess my request is that staff could look further into this to bring back to the table for review" Edwards said.

Councilor Kathy Jeffery said that there are some questions to be answered before she could support such a project. "This is one of the projects I think that could become a priority pending some decision that we have to make yet. I think that if I wanted to include it in the 2009 budget at this point without knowing the other major dollars going into things it would have to be totally conditional on receiving partnership money and on receiving funding" Jeffery told council.

Councilor Sonny Foley told council that he feels the outdoor atmosphere has contributed to the enjoyment of the rink. "I have spoken to quite a number of people who enjoy using this outdoor rink, and they enjoy using it because it doesn't have a roof, because they are skating outside" Foley said. "Putting a roof on this facility goes against the recommendations of, as I interpret it, the master plan" Foley added. Foley said that money should be saved until the town can move forward with the construction of a proper multi-use facility. "The more we put into stopgap measures like this along the way the longer we're going to go without being able to afford building a proper multi-use facility" Foley added.