Get me to the Game on Time

The following story was written by Brad Janes and photogrphed by Karen Ruet. It appeared in the Lifestyles section of the Telegraph Journal on Monday, October 17, 2005. The new website for ice arena maps is http://nbsportspots.googlepages.com/

Website helps NBers find arena locations around the province

By Brad Janes

Special to the Telegraph-Journal

It's dark.

The rain has turned to snow. The windshield wipers aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing.

You're late and you're lost.

Making matters worse, the starting goaltender, a defenceman and a right-winger are in the vehicle with you. You can feel their eyes on your neck, the sense of frustration settling in.

Time's ticking and there isn't a gas station or pedestrian in site to try and find the Stanley Agrena. Or the Forum in Bouctouche. Or the geographically challenging Hilton Belyea Arena in West Saint John.

Hey, Bernie Connors has been there.

The Halifax native has been living in New Maryland for the past few years (actually since 1995) and is still learning the lay of the land when it comes to finding ice arenas in New Brunswick.

"I don't have the experience of (growing up in NB and) playing in many of the arenas in some of New Brunswick's communities," said Mr. Connors.

"Sometimes it's easy enough to find the community, but it's not so easy to find the arena. I was in Stanley last year and we went back and forth more than a few times (looking for the arena). Turns out it's a couple of buildings behind homes on the main drag, but it took some time to find it."

This prompted Mr. Connors to take some affirmative action.

Surely he wasn't the only person befuddled with finding arenas for a hockey game, figure skating competition, ringette, speed skating event or something else involving ice under thin blades.

The manager of GISD (it's "GIS" - Geographic Information System) with the Department of Environment and Local Government for the province, Mr. Connors started fiddling with his computer late last winter and created a Bible of ice arenas for the province.

Logging on to http://ca.geocities.com/berniejconnors/NBRinks/Rinksmain.htm could change your arena trekking life. (Update - new URL is http://nbsportspots.googlepages.com/)

As a minor hockey parent, Mr. Connors has lugged 11-year-old James to atom and peewee games and Liam has just entered the atom stage as a nine-year-old.

There will be many more trips this winter. He feels better knowing there shouldn't be a whole lot of problems finding the next mystery arena in some foreign-to-him community.

"I had been organizing a Yahoo! group for my son's teams and was in charge of distributing schedules and changes to games," said Mr. Connors. "I started putting links to Map Quest on our Web site to help other parents and then asked myself why I was only doing it one at a time. I thought there couldn't be that many arenas in the province so why not set up a Web site that shows all of them?"

He has some 85 arenas entered from the Ade Theriault Arena in Baie Ste-Anne to the Carleton Civic Centre in Woodstock. And numerous ones in between.

Of course Mr. Connors is quick to point out he's not prepared to take responsibility to all arena locations.

That comes in the form of his disclaimer on the Web page, meaning if it's 10:30 at night, you're in Shippagan and can't find the arena, don't bother him with a phone call.

With a humorous tone he won't take responsibility because you missed the right turn at the dentist's office when you should've turned left at the lawyer's office.

"You have to remember I haven't visited all of these arenas myself," he said with a chuckle. "I've probably been in 10 to 12 per cent of them. You may get lost if you follow my directions so I don't want anyone complaining if you find an abandoned arena in some community."

Tell you the truth, the feedback he's received has been pretty good.

It's a volunteer effort on Mr. Connors' behalf, mainly because he knows as his sons' progress along the hockey system trail, he's going to be visiting more and more provincial arenas.

"The words I've received back have been pretty good and I've been pleased with some of the comments," he said.

"The data is all pretty complete now. Last year I was still getting street addresses, but I've got all the arena names now. A few may be missing their civic numbers, but I'm pretty sure all the coordinates are accurate."

He has also been asked if he would be interested in branching out to offer similar services for soccer pitches, baseball and softball diamonds. Curling rinks. The sporting list is almost endless.

A Web site called arenamaps.com has been trying to cover all hockey arenas in Canada and the United States and could branch out into other athletic venues, but that particular site isn't up to date and doesn't cover all of the New Brunswick arenas.

"It would be great to do something like this for other provinces and other sports because I know it can be just as difficult to find a soccer field or a basketball court," Mr. Connors said.

"Some suggested I should talk to people about doing this for baseball, but right now I don't have any plans for that."

Through all of his research, where is it Mr. Connors would like to visit the most?

"I noticed an arena in Cocagne called the Marina Arena and that caught my attention," he said. "When you zoom on it, you can clearly see there's a marina adjacent to the arena. That's one I'd like to see for myself."

Chances are he will sooner rather than later.

So if indeed you are traveling to an arena you've never heard of and the all the obstacles that await you in unfamiliar territory appears daunting, you may want a printed version of Mr. Connors' directions in your glove compartment.

Or at least in the hands of the starting goaltender in the back seat.