Skate House Approved

A show of hands at the city planning board meeting was all it took to approve the new skate house for White"s Park. Dave Gill made the presentation to a packed house of more than a dozen citizens (one of which was just passing through town and stopped to ask for directions to get back on I-93). Gill first showed the group the original design (pictured top right). The plan proposed a 35,000 square foot facility which would have a grand central hall that could seat up 2,500 people with central air and seven gas fire places. The central hall would be surrounded by ice skating amenities such as a skate rental shop (with a Mr. Curtis impersonator), a hot chocolate/expresso bar, a fitness room, eight locker rooms,a hockey equipment store with 5 skate sharpening machines(with a Donnie Burke impersonator), a Zamboni parts store, a yoga center, a Japanese-style massage parlor and transgender bathrooms. The second level would have luxury boxes for watching the Black Ice Pond Hockey Tournament in the winter and The Bass Masters Carp Fishing Derby in the summer. There will also be a shopping mall which will include luxury boutiques, fine restaurants and a Super Cimmo's Market. Other amenities will feature an indoor waterfall, escalators, The Black Ice Hockey Hall of Fame, an Imax surround theatre and a helicopter landing pad on the roof. The city estimates this will cost the city roughly $4,500,000. with the other half of the cost provided by Black Ice Pond Hockey donations. Many residents were opposed to the plan as being overly ambitious and not being in line with Concord's historical tradition. Mary "No" Deal said that she thought "the city was making a deal with the devil by accepting donations from Black Ice". She claimed that she "has inside information" that "the city would allow the Black Ice Pond Hockey Association to have tournaments every weekend from Halloween through Easter using an underwater refrigeration system that was to be installed in the bottom of the pond." Black Ice board member Dan "Lucky" Luker responded by saying, "I know that I'm only working one weekend of the year no matter how much Black Ice Ale they offer me". Another resident stated his concern was that the skate house may lead to a decline in the red winged black bird population by infringing on their habitat. He said, "I would like to see just a nice simple bird house put up where the old skate house used to be". Still others cited the need for a nature preserve that would eliminate buildings all together so buffalo could once again roam the park like they did before Mr. and Mrs. White gave up drinking. In any case; a second plan was presented that was more modest in scale. It quickly met the approval of almost all those present who had no interest in ice hockey. This plan proposed the scaled down facility to be placed on the site of the current skate house facility overlooking the pond from the southwestern shore. The second plan was approved and the meeting was quickly adjourned before Dan Arndt knew what hit him. For the hockey community, it was a bitter pill to swallow.