Naked City - Volume 1 Issue 1 - (Page 46) >game on Why is the Wichita Ice Center still here? After more than 11 years, Wichita still has this little gem sitting on the River. But why? To hear some locals discuss it, it’s a drain on the taxpayers and should never have been built or supported by the City. According to ice sports fans outside of Wichita, we have a world-class facility that just isn’t supported or valued by the general population. NakedCity decided to look into this. And it seems like a success story. After struggling with past management (or mismanagement), the City took back the Ice Center, hired Rink Management Services, and now, the Wichita Ice Center is $26,000 in the black and ahead of the current budget by thousands. Rink general manager, Brenda Glidewell, attributes much of the change to the new management company. “We have a great leadership team in place, and have for some time,” said Glidewell. “With this new company, we are able to bring new ideas to the table, based on our experience and knowledge of the facility, and we are actually heard. They listen.” And Glidewell’s not far off — innovation in marketing can be seen at all levels of the operation. Saturday broomball games are a great alternative to people that are scared, or just don’t want to skate. Broomball is played with a stick and a ball and in your own shoes. Adult recreation hockey leagues have grown and expanded. There are now 24 weeks of play with playoffs wrapping up the season. “We get all kinds of young adults playing in our hockey leagues,” said Shane Brydges. “We have transplants from the northeast who grew up playing hockey. We get employees relocated by Bombardier and Spirit that want to keep up their skills until they return to Canada.” The Pro Shop is top-notch. It doesn’t carry the inventory it once did, and it really can’t compete on price with Internet sales, but it comes with excellent service. They take care of all skates and fittings. The one-on-one customer service is unmatched online. The Ice Center has also reached out to young parents with youth hockey leagues and figure skating lessons and recitals. Rink management has really pushed the benefits of these activities in team building and personal development. When Glidewell first came to Wichita from Michigan, she was surprised to see that we had a rink. “It blew me way that we had such a great ice skating rink right downtown,” said Glidewell. We have prefab metal buildings out in the middle of fields. Certainly nothing this nice.” We at NakedCity venture to guess that the Wichita Ice Center is here because of people like Glidewell and Brydges. Some in Wichita complain that we don’t have much to offer as a city. Pooh on you. We encourage those folks to get out and support venues like this. Or we won’t be asking why is the Ice Center still here. We’ll be asking why did the Ice Center go away? >>> written by > Andy Mcginnis rinK PHOtO by > dArren decKer ice reserves Check out nakedcitymag.com for more to this story, and sign up to win free passes to the Wichita Ice Center. http://www.nakedcitymag.com
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