If you’ve dreamed one day to become Salt Spring’s first Zamboni driver, it may be an even longer wait than you thought.
But year-round recreational ice skating is coming soon to the island nonetheless, according to a local nonprofit, which announced Thursday, April 16 it had taken ownership of an 80-foot by 40-foot synthetic rink — and all its boards and netting — and now just needs a place to put it.
“It’s now ours to bring home to Salt Spring,” said Salt Spring Island Healthy Living Society (SSIHLS) co-chair Jesse Giddings. “So the question isn’t whether the rink is coming, it’s where it will live.”
Giddings told Salt Spring’s Local Community Commission (LCC) that over the past year he’d been working with the BC Amateur Sport Fund and a team of funding and operations consultants to explore bringing an ice arena to the island — and among them, he said, was SSIHLS co-chair and Hockey Hall of Fame inductee Luc Robitaille.
“He’s been an active partner in pursuing this,” chuckled Giddings. “I bring him up, not to name-drop, but to give you a sense that there are serious people behind this project.”
The society’s early estimates had put the cost of building a full-size ice arena on Salt Spring at roughly $15-20 million before land costs, Giddings said. They were, however, recently approached by KidSport Greater Victoria about a 3,200-square-foot “Can-Ice” synthetic rink, owned by the Victoria Hockey Legacy Society (VHLS).
From an environmental standpoint, Giddings said, the modern synthetic surface material is a solid polymer that stays intact through its 10-year lifespan — the rink is squeegeed-off after a rain, and the double-sided tiles can be flipped for a second decade of use.
“It’s not the old-generation plastic people may remember; there’s no microplastic shedding, no runoff, no chemical coatings,” he said. “No refrigeration, no Zamboni and no ongoing utility costs — it’s a lower impact footprint than any real-ice facility you could build.”
The rink had been purchased for $175,000 in 2024, and used only twice — first at the 2024 Scotiabank Hockey Day in Canada celebration at Ship Point, and again in 2025 during the Century Celebration for the Victoria Cougars’ 1925 Stanley Cup victory.
The timing seemed too good to pass up, so SSIHLS didn’t.
“VHLS was open to releasing it in exchange for a $100,000 donation to Kidsport,” said Giddings. “A donor has committed the full $100,000, and [their] only ask is that the rink go to a community that will actually use it.”
f his 15 years on the island either serving on the former Parks and Recreation Commission (PARC) or the LCC, and while ice rink proposals were brought up from time to time, they were always made a lower priority due to the tremendous costs involved.
“When it did come up, there was something verging on terror in the eyes of staff,” laughed Webster. “But I see this concept working. I look at our master plans, and of course none of them include a rink, but boy, I can sure imagine the Rainbow Road site as being a fit.”
“I was on PARC in 2008,” said LCC member Gayle Baker, “and we had a commissioner rather dramatically quit when it looked like we weren’t getting an ice rink. So this is exciting.”
In addition to the maintenance and energy expenses avoided with synthetic ice, Giddings pointed out the modular rink offers a great deal of flexibility — it could be easily expanded to a full-size rink with additional “tiles,” he said, if a larger space became available. And once disassembled, the rink sets up in about seven hours with relatively few tools.
“This means that it doesn’t have to live in just one place,” he said. “Imagine for a moment; we could move this and set it out in Centennial Park for the winter, right in the heart of our village, as a winter gathering point for the whole community.”
Giddings said SSIHLS had raised additional funds for equipment — “Right now, I’ve got 100 ice skates on hold,” he said — and that the rink, boards and netting were in a shipping container in Victoria which could be repurposed on-island as the rental hut.
SSIHLS had negotiated to have transportation and delivery covered under their agreement, Giddings said, and the current owners would prefer to have the container relocated in the next 60 to 90 days.
“It may end up in my yard in the short term, while we work with the community to find the appropriate location,” he laughed. “Ideally we find the appropriate site, it gets delivered and set up on the same day.”
Staff will review the proposal and bring back a full report to the LCC along with options for location and operating structure. Capital Regional District (CRD) director and LCC member Gary Holman cautioned commissioners should ensure the operational expenses could be covered by SSIHLS through reasonable use fees — particularly if they were committing CRD-owned land for the rink.
“But it does really seem like an exciting opportunity,” said Holman, “that for our unique community, is uniquely suited.”