New life being breathed into local ice arena

Thursday, February 4, 2010 -midnight

PLATTSBURGH - For the last eight years, the Lake City Stars Arena on Sharron Avenue has been owned and operated by Thomas Dowhan of Vermont. Recently however, two community-oriented guys have taken over.

The newly renamed Ameri-Can North Sports Center, co-owned by Jamie Reidy and Craig Worley, has the potential to be a "family place."

"We see the potential here," explained Worley. "We just want to make it better for the community. The youth especially. Make it a family place once again."

After officially taking ownership of the building in late-December, Worley and Reidy set out to fix up the ice arena, which is opened year-round.

"Their refrigeration was in rough shape, the zamboni was in rough shape," recalled Worley. "The building in general was just dirty and not in good shape."

After receiving a loan from NBT Bank, of who Worley said saw "the potential and they believe in the building, too," changes began to take shape at the center.

"We've put in a lot of carpet. we've put in a new scorers booth," Worley explained, adding new lights over the ice are also being added. "We've just done an awful lot of work."

Currently the arena is the home-ice for Beekmantown Central School, Saranac Central School, Plattsburgh Youth Hockey Road Runners, the Plattsburgh Junior Cardinals, and a men's league.

"It's a year-round facility, so we want to be kind of the place that everybody wants to come to play hockey," explained Worley. "We want to offer any of the teams, people, a clean environment."

However, hockey players won't be the only people benefitting from what the arena has to offer.

According to Worley, public skating and stick & puck games are currently being added to the calendar of events.

"Everyone has to wear a helmet," he explained of stick & puck. "You can go out with a stick and we put the nets out and some people dress as goalies so you can kind of fool around."

Denpubs.com

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