The Watertown Municipal Arena has long been a place where local children learn to skate, play hockey, figure skate, build friendships, and become part of something bigger than themselves. For generations, families have spent countless hours in that building — early mornings, late nights, practices, games, competitions, and everything in between. It is a community facility, and its ice time is one of the most valuable recreational resources available to local families.

Today, however, demand for ice is extremely high, and several local youth programs are struggling to secure enough time. Families are traveling to over a hour to surrounding communities for practices, including on school nights, while driving past the arena closest to home. Figure skating programs are also seeking additional ice. At the same time, community members have raised concerns that a program which historically holds a large block of the arena ice has experienced a significant reduction in its own number of teams while continuing to hold the same amount of ice time.

The concern is not about whether one youth program deserves ice more than another. It is about what should happen when a program no longer needs all of the municipal ice originally allocated to it.

Prime time (desired) hours are now being used by an out-of-town hockey association rather than being made available to the local programs / existing arena users who have already requested additional ice. Partnerships between organizations can be valuable, but when local demand is this high, the process for reallocating municipal ice should be clear, consistent, and transparent.

When children are traveling farther for practices, families are getting home later on school nights, and local programs are being told additional ice is unavailable, but it’s available for a non local program, every available hour matters.

This petition asks the City of Watertown to review how ice at the Northern Credit Union Community Arena is allocated and redistributed. We are requesting a process that considers current participation, actual usage, and current community demand when determining how municipal ice should be distributed.

When a renter cannot use all of its contracted ice, those hours should be returned to the City so they can be offered fairly to other current arena users seeking additional time. The goal is not to take opportunities away from any child or organization. The goal is to ensure that a public, tax-payer, community resource is being used with fairness and effectively as possible for the families who rely on it today.

The arena has a long history with current programs in this community, and that history matters. But history should never outweigh the needs of the children who live here now.

Local kids should be able to skate local. Period.

It should not matter what jersey they wear, what program they belong to, or what organization their family chose. If it’s local children from this community who need ice, they should not be driving past their own municipal arena so that outside organizations can use time that local programs are asking for.

This is a community arena. Its purpose should be to serve the community.

Local ice should serve local kids first — no matter the jersey, no matter the program.

Please sign this petition and help us restore fair access to the Northern Credit Union Community Arena for our youth programs.