WEST LEBANON — James W. Campion III rink officially reopened last week after a second phase of renovations was completed. The public is invited to celebrate the milestone on Saturday with a program and a chance to hit the ice.
Saturday’s festivities, set from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., will include remarks and a ribbon-cutting, followed by a free public skate.
The latest renovations, with a $2.5 million budget funded through donations and a bank loan, began in March and included replacing the rink’s sand floor with a concrete slab and installing new under-ice piping, boards, glass and bleachers, among other improvements.
“(I’m) just super excited about how it all came together and really transformed into one of the premier rinks of its kind in New England,” said Dick Dodds, the rink’s manager and coach of the Hanover High boys hockey team.
“I think everything has been transformed from the tippy-top ceiling to five feet below the surface. Everything is brand new, and it looks really, really good.”
Along with Dodds’ squad, the Hanover High girls team and both Lebanon High hockey programs call Campion their home.
“The renovations went very smoothly,” Jennifer Rickards, the executive director of the Hanover Improvement Society, wrote in an email “We have a great team with Estes and Gallup as our general contractor, as well as Mudge Greeley Architects and Preferred Mechanical Services as the other primary construction partners.”
The renovations have already started paying off. Dodds said that the time to produce the rink’s initial ice slab was cut from around two weeks to two days.
He is also hopeful for what the new and improved rink, initially opened in 1988, will do come hockey season.
“The thing that excites me the most, you know, would be maybe the practices and the fact that you know the ice is just a lot faster, a lot different, and I think it’s going to make for more skilled hockey and faster hockey, so I’m anxious to see that,” Dodds said.
The latest rink improvements follow the first phase, completed in 2023 through a fundraising campaign that raised $5 million and brought enhancements to the lobby, locker rooms and more.
Rickards wrote that donors have raised $735,440, with an additional $281,060 in expected pledges going toward funding the newest phase of renovations.
Additionally, she said that $879,000 has been borrowed against the aforementioned bank loan. “We are still raising funds to fully fund the project,” she added.
Rickards told the Valley News in March that ice rental rates were slated to increase to help repay the loan and help fund the rink’s operating costs.
She said rates have increased by 7% from last year: ice rentals are now $300 an hour during prime time and $260 an hour off prime time.
Public skating times, per Dodds, are “generally” noon to 1:30 p.m. on Mondays and Thursdays; 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Wednesdays; and 1:40 p.m. to 3:10 p.m. on Fridays. Campion will publicize weekend public skate times as they become available.
