La Broquerie Reeve excited to host the Pistons and receive rink upgrades

The Steinbach Pistons are repurposing the Centennial Arena’s safety glass to La Broquerie to improve their rink, as the Pistons will be playing their next season with La Broquerie’s rink as their home ice.   

La Broquerie will also spend up to $50,000 into improving their rink.   

Reeve Ivan Normandeau says this is a good trade-off for La Broquerie. 

“We're upgrading our rink and yes, we do have to put some renovations ourselves, but the rink will certainly be in a better state when the Pistons leave than when they did show up,” he says. “I believe it's a great thing for La Broquerie. It's nice to showcase our rink to other communities and to other people.” 

Besides the plexiglass, La Broquerie will also be receiving some other things like the boards, rubber matting, lockers, and cabinetry from the Centennial Arena.  

He is glad the arena will be getting these upgrades. 

“The glass will be a lot higher than what we're currently used to, and we currently have dressing rooms that are not being utilized whatsoever. So we will be utilizing those existing dressing rooms for the Pistons.” 

He notes there will still be public skate times.

“There are always public skate times on every Sunday, and we can't forget that we just also built a brand new outdoor rink that people can still utilize even if the Pistons are playing. We do have an outdoor rink that we just built last year that could for sure be utilized at the same time.”  

He also assures that minor hockey in La Broquerie will continue on as usual. 

“There will be no impact whatsoever on our minor hockey. The Pistons practice during the day, and usually their games are evenings, especially Saturday nights when usually there's nothing going on at the rink at that time, except for some local commercial hockey. 

Reeve Normandeau says the people feeling the most effect will most likely be a couple of commercial teams, but minor hockey won't see any change in ice time. 

“The intention was never to take any minor hockey away. The minor hockey will have their same ice times, and the rink will just be in a better position when they (the Pistons) leave than when they first got here.”