The Pelham Minor Hockey Association is excited to announce that on March 6th, 2017, in Town Council Chambers, we have finally signed our Licence Agreement with the Town of Pelham and solidified our place in the new Pelham Community Centre.
Mayor Dave and the Town Council lead all of the user groups through the signing process Monday evening...including the PMHA.
The PMHA's Licence Agreement, as well as the other major user groups' agreements, can be viewed on the Town of Pelham website. Please take the opportunity to read through this important documentation!
Since about 1978, people inside of Pelham Minor Hockey have been documenting the need for our association to have access to better ice times, and more ice times - so that we can satisfy the thirst for more hockey and broader availability. In more recent times - We all know that we have had to play home game in other towns' arenas, had to endure years of 6am practices and other not-so-convenient times for our children to play hockey, we have sent our Pelham teams to other locations to get their practices in, and we really have not been able to host many tournaments which benefit the association as a whole.
The old barn itself - The Pelham Arena - built by and supported by some wonderful people as an opportunity in a still much smaller Pelham at the time (please see the wall at the rink to read who the major contributors to that effort were when they decided to get minor hockey out of the outdoors down in The Pit, and get it into an arena) has in more recent years also posed challenges for us (all user groups) with small dressing room space, roof conditions that are iffy on rainy days, cramped spectator areas with poor visual angles, a small lobby and community room area for people to gather, and a lack of storage space for any user and the staff members....but we have loved our arena and been very successful in it over the years! Our Town staff has always done an exceptional job at making the Pelham Arena a clean and fun environment for participants with good ice despite these challenges that grew in depth as time went on.
But with the opening of the new Pelham Community Centre in the summer of 2018, the Pelham Panthers will now be firmly established as the number one priority and the largest user group in the facility on the two ice surfaces. This will definitively allow the Pelham Minor Hockey Association to be served in a modern facility with preferred status, and will clearly allow our programs to blossom and our members to have a great experience.
The Pelham Community Centre will certainly be the home of the Pelham Minor Hockey Association!
It must be stated that many people for many years have put in a lot of hours and effort in the hope that one day the Town of Pelham would see a new Community Centre come to be a reality, and that the PMHA would have a new home for our players and programs. We cannot thank past Board members, alumni, parents of the past, and other supporters from the community and business world enough - all of whom have collectively played a role in paving the way for this to become a reality. We must also obviously thank the current Town Council, Town employees, and of course Mayor Dave for finally seeing this through to fruition.
When the PMHA signed the official documents on Monday evening, the efforts of people from the past and people involved currently was not lost in the moment - it was as if we signed hundreds of names in one pen stroke - all the names of people who had the vision for something larger or something greater in our Town for our PMHA people to use.
If any member would like further information, please do not hesitate to ask.
The PMHA will also continue to keep our members updated as more exciting news and events continue to emerge in the near future regarding the new Pelham Community Centre!!! Stay tuned for news soon.....
Sincerely,
The PMHA Board.
To see the official PRESS RELEASE click HERE.
Also we would direct you to this website for more information about the facility, and the fundraising plans:
OUR PCC
The other major user groups who have signed Licence Agreements with the Town of Pelham are:
Pelham Panthers Junior B Hockey Club
Southern Tier Admirals AAA Hockey
Niagara Centre Figure Skating Club
Pelham Panthers Minor Basketball
Welland Raiders Minor Lacrosse