New ice policy finally approved in Norfolk

Luke Edwards

Grant Haven Media

Quite often when both teams are mad, it’s a sign the referee did a good job.

By that measure, Coun. Chris Van Paassen said Norfolk County’s new ice allocation policy might be a success.

“A wise man told me once the best way to figure out if something’s fair is when nobody’s happy,” he said.

“We’ve done a heck of a good job at that.” The new policy, which seeks to level the playing field for ice allocation by using a formula to dole out base ice time for Norfolk’s user groups, has been contentious. Councillors hesitated in previous meetings to make a decision on the policy, but a few changes proposed by staff at the Feb. 10 meeting were enough to get it over the goal line.

One of the major changes is to provide a transition year, where ice time for an organization cannot change by more than five per cent. Some organizations are worried they could lose significant access to ice time under the new policy.

A second change will see a proposed residency requirement dropped to 75 per cent. Previously, staff proposed 95 per cent of users on a team would have to be Norfolk residents, with the organization self-monitoring.

“This one-year transition period will provide stability to the organizations while allowing the county and user groups to evaluate the policy’s overall impacts, addressing some of the concerns that are still out there with the 75 per cent residency and make any necessary adjustments after that one year,” said Brenda Andress, project lead for strategic recreation initiatives.

While base allocation formulas have some groups worried, staff pointed out the base allocation isn’t the only ice time the groups can secure. Once that’s all doled out, groups will be able to apply for extra time, depending on what’s left over.

“The policy is to make sure there’s an equitable distribution to everybody at the beginning, and then there’s always room to ask for more,” said Van Paassen.

The proposed residency rules also generated plenty of disagreement, with councillors arguing it should be higher, lower, or non-existent.

“I don’t think we have a problem, I think we’re trying to create a problem,” said Coun. Linda Vandendriessche, pointing out that currently minor hockey teams in Norfolk could be rostering high numbers of out-of-towners, but it’s not happening.

However, Coun. Alan Duthie said the potential is there.

“I think we need to put parameters in place to ensure local kids are not losing out,” he said.

There were some other changes to the policy. There’s a new section that deals with requests from new user groups, as well as tweaks to wording meant to make things clearer.

Staff also proposed some tweaks to the base allocation, including an increase to two hours per week per team for U9 to U21 Norfolk Minor Hockey local league teams. Group size limits for the skating club’s CanSkate, CanPower, and Learn to Skate programs have shifted from 60 per hour to 30 per hour, and the synchronized skating programs have gone from 24 per hour to 20 per hour. Allocation for competitive synchronized skating moved from five hours to four.