The South Porcupine arena skated away from Tuesday's council meeting with more cash than expected.
A plea from Ward 2 Coun. Lorne Feldman saw council award $25,000 from the municipal accommodation tax (MAT) fund to the Carlo Cattarello Arena — known as The Barn — for a new scoreboard.
The MAT committee's recommendation in the council agenda was to give the group $10,000.
When the topic was up for discussion, Feldman, who represents the ward the iconic arena is located in, talked about how the facility forms part of the community's fabric. He noted the Porcupine Minor Hockey Association (PMHA) and work it does for programming and bringing in tournaments that attract thousands of players from out of town.
"I was really surprised to learn what the barn does for adult hockey. There's 700-800 players in the community and if not for The Barn we would not have adult hockey," he said.
The original ask, he said, was in the range of $65,000 to $70,000, which wasn't received favourably and the non-profit group lowered its ask to $25,000.
"I've heard some, you know, contrary comments saying that ... perhaps we shouldn't be giving to a non-city facility. I think there's a real connection, a real nexus between what the barn does, as far as programming, alleviating so many costs that would essentially rest with the city ... and they take care of that," he argued.
The city has been collecting the MAT — a four-per-cent charge on hotels, motels and other short-term accommodations — since 2019. Half of the money goes to city coffers and half is redistributed into the community for tourism activities. The city partnered with the TEDC to be the not-for-profit entity to reinvest the money.
Coun. Cory Robin sits on the MAT committee and explained that the $10,000 was a recommendation and council ultimately has the power to up it. He tabled increasing to the full $25,000.
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While Coun. Steve Black ultimately supported the item, he talked about the scoreboards at other city facilities. The McIntyre arena is the only facility with a comparable scoreboard, and he suggested reviewing what's in the city-owned facilities.
Later in the meeting, he talked about the nature of ice sports in the city and that people don't necessarily play at the facility closest to their house.
The Barn, said Black, serves the community at-large very well and does a tremendous job organizing.
"Hopefully, there's another wave of volunteers that are looking to take over co-ordination of that arena when the current set is done, otherwise it may become a City of Timmins facility, down the road as well," he said, adding he hopes they have continued success.
