The Crookston Park Board met on Monday night in the Council Chambers are City Hall. The board received an update on winter activities from Parks and Recreation Director Scott Riopelle.
Riopelle said Minnesota Hockey and the Minnesota Ice Arena Manager’s Association is working to make uniform restrictions or limitations at area rinks before activities begin in October and November. “I think Figure Skating is slated for November,” said Riopelle. “Hockey will start in October practice wise. We shouldn’t have a whole lot of restrictions at this point—figure skating, they have to keep their distance from each other. Hockey, you try to run a practice without a whole lot of contact. There will sometimes be contact, of course, as that’s the nature of the game. We are following guidelines set forth by Minnesota Hockey, District 16, and the Minnesota Ice Arena Manager’s Association as far as the rink, how we have people using it, how we’re going to sanitize, where people are able to go, are locker rooms available, are they not.”
Limiting access to certain areas is vital for sanitizing, which Riopelle said will become much more difficult when all three rinks are open. “My concern is once we open three rinks, people can only come to their activity 15 minutes prior and must leave 15 minutes after,” said Riopelle. “Right now, we are able to keep people in a certain area because we’ve cordoned it off. Once we open up everything, we’re going to have to remove some of those barriers. And any place anybody goes, we have to make sure we sanitize. We’re going to need a few more personnel to make sure we’re covering the ice, know who’s in the building, and sanitize.”
Riopelle said he’s looking at ordering some tarps to cover the seats at each end of the event arena as a way to limit access and reduce the area requiring sanitation. “We have talked about purchasing some tarps that are made to fit seating areas to cover both ends of the event arena because that seats 1,200 people,” said Riopelle. “We can only have 250 in there right now, so if we leave it wide, open people will sit in those areas. Roping it off doesn’t work too well, so we’d like to put some nice tarps in there that are made for it, which will cut down on our people having to sanitize. And we’re getting a couple of walkthrough temperature scanners at the east entrance down below and the main entrance up above. I’ve also picked up another electrostatic sprayer that’s cordless for disinfecting.”
Youth Hockey will begin with games within the district only in November, and will then expand the teams Crookston can plan to include most northern Minnesota towns in December. Minnesota Hockey will reassess things for statewide competition in January. Youth wrestling is in a wait and see approach because of the difficulty of social distancing. “I think the youth program might coincide with what the high school stuff does there,” said Riopelle. “That’s an uncertainty for us.”
The tennis courts at the Ray Ecklund Complex are also being resurfaced and will hopefully finish this fall. “They are working on the tennis courts now,” said Riopelle. “They’ve done a lot of the prep work, some crack filling. They have some equipment they have to work on tomorrow, and then they’ll be back up Wednesday to do some more work. Hopefully, we can get that accomplished yet this year, depending on the weather. Otherwise, they’ll be here first thing in the spring to finish up.”
Crookston Spors Center COVID Related Restrictions/Limitations –
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