Hockey rink Round 2 tonight

Niagara Sports Tournaments and Legacy Hospitality made competing proposal to operate Hyde Park rink before the Falls City Council in July.

Mayor Robert Restaino laid out the competing proposals over 5 of the supporting documents for tonight’s meeting.

The bottom line: Mike Carella is local, has run the arena for several years and is highly regarded by the community.

Legacy Hospitality is a big corporate operator offering a bit more revenue to the city but with a spotty performance record elsewhere.

Restaino makes the case that the rink has been subsidized by city taxpayers between 2013 and today at a cost of more than $1 million and the Niagara Sports Tournaments never once met its expected payment schedule, shortchanging the city $1.426 million.

The numbers, in black and white, show it is very difficult for a municipality to successfully run a hockey rink at a profit. It also offers rare transparency from the current administration which will likely only be represented at tonight’s meeting by Acting Corporation Counsel Thomas DeBoy.

It’s fascinating to consider a city that carries a $130,000 annual deficit on a train station built without bonding, and goes $83,000 in the hole on a hockey rink it owns outright wants us to believe Centennial Park, at a cost of $200 or $250 million, can operate on a cash-positive basis.

Look over here. We even have a feasibility study. Without consideration of debt service or siting, but hey, why quibble about a few hundred million when we are already losing $200,000 a year on a hockey rink and a train station?