CLEAR LAKE CITY, Texas – Space City Ice Station near Clear Lake has been home to several youth, high school and adult hockey teams and hundreds of figure skaters. But after 18 years, the rink many refer to as a second home could be in jeopardy.
"I've been playing here for 15 years," said high school hockey coach Al Pinder. "My son started when he was 5 years old."
Hockey players assembled for the first practice of the season Monday night, but now there may be no season at all. The current owners of the rink on the Gulf Freeway, north of Bay Area Boulevard, said all the teams and skaters have until Oct. 9 to leave. The building is expected to change ownership the next day.
The problem is that hockey season starts the week after and they've had no time to arrange for practices or home games at another local facility.
"We would have a very hard time," said Pinder. "We would lose practice time. The travel teams would have to play their games away in other cities."
Parents said they were told a nearby business has exercised an option to purchase the building and there are no plans to keep it as an ice rink. Closure would disrupt figure skaters as well, many of whom are in the midst of training for regional competitions. They too would be forced to find other rinks to continue, and in Houston the options are far and few between.
"It'll be rough," said Jeannette Applewhite, whose granddaughter is a competitive figure skater. "The cost of the gas, extra gas, driving way over there. It'll be really hard for a lot of the skaters here."
The owners, SCIS Ownership Group, broke the news to patrons last Thursday with a Facebook post. They wrote that any customers that had paid for programs past Oct. 9 would receive pro-rated refunds.