One would be somewhat hard pressed in Saskatchewan to find a small town that does not have a community rink. However, such was the case for the Town of Alida for several years, until this weekend.

They marked the grand opening of a new ice surface that houses both hockey and curling, and Leanne Debuc shared that the celebrations "went really well," and shared a few highlights.

"We had received a considerable amount of cash donations from one of our builders that helped us with the project. We had a live auction and silent auction, which brought in a fair amount of cash towards our mortgage. We had a lot of history brought up throughout the weekend. We saved the old timber beams from the old rink and they were re-purposed into the benches in the dressing rooms, and an auction item was made and produced a lot of cash, a memory of the old rink."

She noted that another highlight was the fact that senior members of the community that built the former facility were able to see in come back to life, new and improved.

The town had flooded in 2014, and the basement of the old facility was not exempt, falling victim to the waters. Due to the age of the building, the Town decided that it was not feasible to carry out repairs, so it was torn down in 2015 and rebuilding took place up through December of 2017.

Debuc noted that they were quite pleased with the turnout to the reopening festivities, which lasted from Friday evening through Saturday night.

"We had probably about 150 some for the supper alone, and we had a few teams for curling for our fun spiel, and we had about 4 teams for the hockey tournament."

She added that they look forward to providing an entertainment facility for their community and those surrounding. 

Photos below are courtesy of Alida Rec Board