Sports

Ice Rink Slated to Break Ground This Spring, Open in 2015

Endicott College plans to have an on-campus ice rink open in 2015.

Endicott College is moving full-speed ahead on plans to break ground this spring on a new ice rink.

College President Richard Wylie said Tuesday that the college’s Board of Trustees have given the project, which will cost between $7.5 million and $8 million, the OK. College officials plans to submit permit applications to the city government early in the new year, headed toward groundbreaking in “late spring or early summer,” Wylie said.

The project would be slated to open on July 1, 2015.

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The rink will be professional size and meet NCAA postseason hockey regulations. The primary use of the rink will be for the college’s men’s and women’s hockey teams, which will move from club status to Division 3 in September 2015.

There will be seating for 800 to 1,000 spectators.

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From there, “we’ll look at other organizations that can share the time,” Wylie said.

The rink would be open year-round, with about a four to six week stretch in the summer when it will be closed for inspections and maintenance. In the summer, Wylie said Endicott plans to host both day and overnight hockey camps.

To date, Wylie said the college has had “casual discussions” with Beverly High School leaders and local youth hockey programs about use of the rink. Those discussions will begin in earnest after Dec. 1, Wylie said.

Wylie said the rink will be available to programs beyond the Endicott campus, both for practice and games.

“I must be stopped 200 to 300 times a year by parents asking ‘when are you going to build it?,” Wylie said. “People are traveling too far too early in the morning and to late at night (to get to other rinks).”

Right now, Endicott uses rinks at both Pingree School in Hamilton and Salem State University.

On weekends, the rink would be open for family open skates for a few hours, with skate rentals available, Wylie said.

“It would be a time when families can come up here and just skate,” he said.

College officials began planning for an on-campus rink about two years ago when it became clear that a project known as Beverly Sportsplex and Community Center, planned to be built near Beverly Airport, would not move forward. That project had planned to be a much bigger project, with a competition rink, practice rink and small rink plus an indoor soccer and baseball field and batting cages. Endicott would have been a partner with other groups, including St. John’s Prep, on the project, which was being led by a private developer.

Wylie said Endicott felt that the location on L.P. Henderson Road was too far on campus and is now glad to be constructing a rink on campus near the nursing center near where the Stoneridge Montessori School was located.

“In the last two years it became clear we wanted it here,” Wylie said.

It will have direct access from Hale Street, if needed, and there will also be a gate that would direct traffic through the college’s main entrance, depending on the schedule of events.


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