Important News About New Arena - Vote Will Take Place May 9

[LocalSportsReport]

City council will be voting on May 9th to proceed with the hiring of an arena management company. The company would act as a consultant while the next steps are being completed and then would manage the new arena if it is approved. This vote is EXTREMELY important.

The vote is really the first of two very important votes. The second vote will be held in the fall and will be to hire the designer/builder, which will pretty much be the final yes/no vote.

Why is the May 9th vote so important. First, this project really has two elements - the arena manager and the arena designer/builder. By approving the arena manager, council is halfway to approving the project.

Second, since the arena management company will act as a consultant, they will be providing their expertise to city staff and the councillors. This should both speed up the process as well as providing valuable advice to the city from people who are experienced in operating arenas.

Third, a yes vote implies that council has the desire to build a new arena. From what I understand, council will be given some cost estimates so they will know what will be expected. A yes vote basically approves the arena in principal.

Lastly, a no vote would reduce our chances of getting a new arena and keeping the IceDogs significantly. Simply put, we must make sure that council votes yes.

Talking to those who will be involved in the vote, here is what we must do:

1) Email or call the mayor and councillors. We are at this stage because council has heard support for a new arena from a large group of people. Don't stop now! We need to show our support more than ever. Also, don't just email or call the councillors. Encourage others to do the same. If someone could post the email addresses of the councillors it would be appreciated.

2) Write a letter to the editor in the Standard. There are councillors who actually count the number of letters in support and against the arena. I know some of you don't like using your real name. However, if you want a new arena and you want to keep the IceDogs here, you need to step up now. Even a simple paragraph stating your support for a new arena would be great. The Standard recommends that letters be kept to 150 words or less although I believe they will let you go slightly over that total. Letters can be emailed to

3) When you see a letter to the editor about the arena in the Standard or even a regular article about the arena, make sure you make a positive comment about the arena on the Standard website under the letter or article. Also be sure to come on this forum and let everyone know about the letter or article so we can all make a post on the Standard website.

4) Lastly, we need the council chambers at city hall to be bursting at the seams with arena supporters on May 9. Council meetings usually start at 6:30 but I will confirm that later. I was told that it is absolutely critical to have a full house on May 9. This will show council just how important the arena issue is.

If you guys have other ideas on how we can show support, please share them. From now until May 9, we need to work like crazy to ensure this gets approved. After that, we will not need to push again until the second vote in the fall.

[AlphaDog]

We really need a list of city councilor emails. I made one up last year, but that was before the election. Nobody knows where to send the emails.

[LocalSportsReport]

Did any of you attend the city council meeting in Niagara Falls when Don Cherry and his group wanted to bring an OHL team to Niagara Falls? Two separate groups had T-shirts made with pro-OHL messages on the front of the T-shirt. Outside of City Hall just before the city council meeting, the groups setup a table and handed out the T-shirts to all of the spectators who were attending the meeting that night.

The one group paid for the T-shirts out of their own pocket. The second group went out and got a sponsor to pay for the T-shirts. That group had the sponsor's logo on the back of the T-shirt and had the pro-OHL message on the front.

The result was that most of the spectators who were watching council that night had pro-OHL T-shirts on. It was quite a statement of support.

I was wondering if anyone out there would be interested in doing the same for the May 9 city council meeting. Perhaps we could have a pro-arena message such as "Let's build it" or "Time to replace the Jack". On the back we could have the sponsors logo who hopefully would pay for the T-shirts. Even if we could have 25 or 50 T-shirts made that could have a huge impact.

If there is anyone interested in spearheading this project, they would have to work quickly as the May 9th meeting is coming soon. You would need to price out 25 or 50 shirts, find a sponsor (or collect donations) and then get the T-shirts printed. A good place to look for a sponsor would be to contact some of the major advertisers with the IceDogs.

One thing this did for the Niagara Falls meeting was to turn the meeting into a fun event. The newspaper had a story about the T-shirts before the meeting which in turn brought more people out to the meeting. It also showed council how much support their was for an OHL team.

[hockeyfan]

hmmmm...do we really want to replicate the Niagara Falls meeting? We all know how that turned out.

Seriously though, that's a good idea to get shirts made!

I'm a bit confused though -- you speak of choosing a management company, then of a yes/no vote. Are they choosing between management companies, or is it a yes/no on one company?

Thanks!

[LocalSportsReport]

I spoke with a councillor today who told me he has only received a few emails this week from people who support the arena. Why is no one emailing the councillors? In the past we have done such a good job showing our support and now with the most important council vote coming up on Monday, most of you are quiet. I realize that only people on this forum know about the May 9th vote and that the general public does not know about the vote yet. However I would have thought that just with the members on this forum we would have generated a lot of emails of support to council. That does not appear to be happening. We really need everyone doing their part to make sure council votes yes for a new arena. Please email or call each councillor and attend the vote on May 9th at city hall. We have come such a long way with the arena and we need to keep pushing for this to happen!

[AlphaDog]

As I said in PM, people are apathetic. Hundreds of people have read this thread, and only a handful have taken the 5mins to fire off an email. Everyone wants a new rink, but not if it's going to cost them 5mins of their time.

I've sent emails from all my different accounts, so if I send any more regarding it, they'll think I'm just spamming them about it.

But if anyone has read this thread and hasn't emailed a councilor or two, then shame on them. They give up their right to whine if council decides against going forward with the arena.

I spend intermissions out front of the arena and here people go on for 10mins about how cramped and horrible our building is, but they can't spend half that time to type a msg? I doubt any of these types of people have ever voted either. They obviously are the type that think their vote or voice doesn't count for anything.

If you haven't emailed at least one councilor, here is their list of emails:

St. Catharines Council Email Address - Niagara IceDogs Fan Forum !

St. Catharines Council Email Address - Niagara IceDogs Fan Forum !

Just type out a good msg, select your text with mouse, hit CTRL-C to copy, and paste it into a couple msgs and enter a different email address for the councilor each time. Heck, just 2 or 3 emails sent out by 20-30 people on here would make a WORLD of difference.

And the IceDogs office should have been much more active in getting at least their season ticket holders knowledgeable about this upcoming vote. The only reason I knew about it was because of LSR's post about a week ago. With almost 2,000 season ticket holders, and email addresses (and/or at least phone numbers) for all of them, they should have fired up that small army of council-swayers. Everyone wants a new rink but nobody wants to tell the right people about it.

[conchar]

I personally wrote to each and every one of the councillors and the Mayor and I rec'd an acknowledgement from the Mayor and one councillor. I hope you all follow suit and contact the councillors before it s too late to make a difference. We love the Ice Dogs and want to do everything we can to make sure they stick around.

[AlphaDog]

With the hundreds of people who visit this site each day, and dozens who read this thread, hopefully before the end of the week we'll have all the dozens saying they wrote council. (instead of 5 or 6 people) This is our way to help make a positive change in our community. If you haven't written a quick 2-3 sentence email to even just ONE councilor, please do so!!

[retired man in end zone]

Originally Posted by conchar

I personally wrote to each and every one of the councillors and the Mayor and I rec'd an acknowledgement from the Mayor and one councillor. I hope you all follow suit and contact the councillors before it s too late to make a difference. We love the Ice Dogs and want to do everything we can to make sure they stick around.

Me too---Got them all, some even responded back, including Mayor Mac. I WILL be their at council on Monday...retired man.

[AlphaDog]

They DID IT! They DID IT! No not the arena being built.. but the IceDogs have become active in getting their fans more involved. Got the email from them today, with a full list of councilor addresses! Way to go!!

It's important for them to know at least the people who USE the facility are fed up with it and would like a new one. I mean, it would be REALLY bad if even if the people who GO to the games didn't care if we built a new arena or not.

Hopefully we can all really make a difference in our community with this thing.