Ice hockey: Magnus League – Magnus League – RINKS: THE HOCKEY DREAMS OF DOUBLE TRACKS!

Grandstand N ° 14

After the Olympic Winter Games organized in Grenoble in 1968, the then sports minister, Joseph Comiti, launched a vast government operation in favor of ice sports which was baptized “Plan of the 100 rinks”. It is this large-scale initiative that allowed many French towns located in the plains to equip themselves for the first time with artificial ice tracks. However, half a century later, the condition of these many post-Olympic rinks has deteriorated. The rinks built at that time have logically aged a lot, forcing some tracks to close their doors permanently, which explains why their total number is currently stagnating or only increasing very slowly. However, cities like Dunkirk, Angers and Louviers have acquired new ice rinks in recent months.

To try to convince and if possible support the municipalities in order to modernize their ice rinks or – better still – to build new ones, the FFHG has set up a Equipment Commission currently chaired by former international Philippe Lacarrière. In this commission sit two architects: Guy Durand and Stéphane Bansac, but also Luc Mainfray, member of the Steering Committee, Benjamin Bilet permanent employee of the Federation and Emmanuel Colliot representative of the National Technical Department (DTN).

The least we can say is that the task of this commission is not easy! When its members make a plea in favor of ice sports with local elected officials, the mayors very often balk, opposing three arguments: the economic context, the ecological problem and municipal priorities. You should know that in France there are today 100 regulatory tracks in total, but that 25 French departments do not yet have an ice rink and that 40 departments have only one! There are therefore “desert areas” and some large cities do not have, or no longer have, an ice track such as Cherbourg, Nancy, Saint-Etienne, Pau, La Rochelle, Saint-Brieuc or Perpignan. In relation to the number of inhabitants, France is at the 18^e world place only with an ice rink for 700,000 people, far behind other countries such as Switzerland, for example, which has an ice rink for 200,000 inhabitants, ie three times more! By comparison, there are around 4,100 public swimming pools in France, i.e. one for 15,000 inhabitants …

Hockey and ice sports will not be able to develop as long as public sessions remain the only priority for managers (profitability requires) and that an ice rink is not considered above all else. sports field. However, in France ice rinks too often rely solely on the enthusiasm for public meetings which thus ensure a break-even point. But this priority management prevents the activities of local sports clubs from taking place during the days and hours when their members are most available. This is the reason why the FFHG is now campaigning for the construction of double regulatory tracks which allow optimal use of the facilities both for the general public and for sports clubs.

As the level of French ice hockey has steadily increased, clubs are now seeking to make the use of their rinks less problematic and more regular for their licensees. It is for this purpose that they seek to equip themselves if possible with a second track that is regulatory. For the moment, there are only six double pistes in France that meet this criterion: Cergy, Rouen, Amiens, Angers, Grenoble and Paris Bercy. Because the problem that often arises for other rinks is that the second track, when it exists, is above all fun, often small (40X20), and can therefore only be used for initiation of young hockey players and not for official matches as is the case in the new ice rink in Dunkirk for example.

Indeed, some second rinks are only “recreational” sometimes equipped with tunnels, even bumps or with a round track that can turn into a nightclub! These arrangements are therefore totally unusable for sports. This is the case, for example, in Montpellier, Valenciennes, Marseille or Cholet. To avoid the installation of this kind of unproductive attraction for hockey, the Equipment Commission tries to position itself as early as possible of the projects in order to try to influence the programmers as was the case in Meudon or even in Cergy. . It should be noted that in this last project the FFHG was totally involved.

But there is also the problem posed by the new “Arenas” which are emerging in large cities to host various musical or sports shows. Indeed, in this case the members of the Equipment Commission have great difficulty in convincing the decision-makers to adapt their projects by allowing, in the more or less long term, to include an ice track. If the FFHG was able to obtain in-extremis the addition of an ice rink in the arena of Montpellier (which unfortunately was used only very briefly for the moment), elsewhere this was not the case. The most regrettable example is in Rouen where the new “Kindarena” has 6,000 seats, but without the possibility of including an ice rink, which is an aberration in the greatest stronghold of French hockey!
In these new rink projects, one or two meters are often missing to make an ice rink. But the biggest problem is that some sports federations, like those of basketball or handball, want to have the local arena. only reserved for their discipline instead of sharing a multipurpose room which would nevertheless be more profitable.

Another example, in Caen, there will soon be a new 4,200-seat arena along Boulevard Guillou, which will open in September 2023. Unfortunately without ice rink in this new enclosure. Indeed, the FFHG “thinks that it is already too late to stop or modify this project”. Sometimes our federation was able to barely save the situation, as for the Toulon and Avignon rinks which almost disappeared. In these cases, the president of the FFHG, who made a tour of France, came in person to convince the elected officials with as a weighty argument a subsidy from the National Sports Agency which allows the renovation of these tracks. . To weigh even more, the FFHG has also established good contacts with the Syndicat des skating rinks and its former “tutor”, the French Federation of Ice Sports.

As we can see, we have to fight to convince elected officials to a double ice rink in favor of ice sports, and therefore hockey. I was able to realize this by going to the Dijon ice rink when the local club was still playing in the Magnus League. Indeed, more than thirty years after my first visit for an internship, I found with astonishment the ice rink of Dijon almost unchanged! Moreover, the Trimolet rink was recently “decommissioned”. In this case, convincing local elected officials to build a second regulatory track in addition is an unrealizable dream! This “return to the future” in Dijon has unfortunately confirmed the great delay taken in certain cities so that ice hockey can benefit from real adapted infrastructures. It is clear that building a new ice rink with two regulatory tracks is the ideal solution.

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