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The ag centre in La Broquerie will soon get a lot more use. That, according to spokesperson Louis Cote who says they broke ground Monday morning on a significant renovation project.

The facility was built about twenty years ago and is used sparingly throughout the year. Cote says it houses their annual ag show every spring and then is used for other functions from time to time such as graduation parties, etc. The plan is now to renovate it, in order to create a natural ice surface hockey rink, complete with two dressing rooms. Cote says "it will open up a lot more ice time for our kids and for our community." Cote says the plan was to make an outdoor rink but local councillor Ken Tallaire suggested doing this instead. Cote says "then we've got all the amenities that the arena has, the zamboni, we don't have to shovel snow and all that stuff so it was a great idea."

Cote says hockey is a growing sport in La Broquerie.  "Our hockey numbers have grown. They've probably doubled in the last five years here. So we've got two teams at every level up until Bantam. And now this year we're hoping to have a Junior team again along with a Midget team and Senior team of course like always and there's just not enough ice to go around basically."

The complex will be used for much more than just hockey. Cote says it will continue to house the annual ag show in spring and will also be used to grow their baseball program. "We're very proud of our baseball program here. We are putting a batting cage in there and with the cement floor on the rink so we can use it for baseball practices in the spring because as you know our weather doesn't really help us out too much in the spring, beginning of the baseball season." And that's not all. Cote adds, "we're planning on putting tennis courts in there. And it can even be used for a walking track for people when it's raining outside or if it's too cold and things like that. There's lots of options for it."

According to Cote, the cost of the project is between $75,000-100,000.  "It all depends a lot on inkind from different businesses, whether it's volunteer labour or product."  To date, about $50,000 has come in. Cote says they received $30,000 from Manitoba Community Places and $10,000 from Caisse Populaire. As a result, Cote says the facility will be called La Caisse Building.

The project will be completed in time for the upcoming hockey season. "As long as we're done mid October we'll easily have our ice in. We're not going to start flooding until probably beginning of December anyways." The tennis courts and batting cages will then become operational next year.

Cote says the main reason for this project is to create more public skating for the kids. He notes with hockey registration numbers growing, right now Sunday is the only time to offer public skating. The new surface will allow them to have public skating each day from 3:30-6pm.

Because the new ice surface will not be regulation size it probably won't be used for a lot of league games, according to Cote. "But that being said, it's a perfect ice size for commercial playing four on four, three on three, things like that. So it's a lot shorter of a skate to score a goal for us older guys."