Approximately $250,000 worth of upgrades have gone into the making the Dominion City Arena more environmentally sustainable and cost efficient. In a statement submitted by the President of Dominion City Recreation Inc., Jason Mateychuk, he said this project has taken a number of years of planning to implement.

"Over the last five years, Dominion City Recreation and the Dominion City Arena have been taking steps to reduce their environmental footprint by measures like installing LED lighting throughout the arena, upgrading to high efficiency furnaces and installing a more efficient chiller for the ice plant." wrote Mateychuk.

He went on to say, "Local farmer Randy Ostberg, who dedicated 20+ years of volunteer service to the arena, listened as these upgrades occurred and decided he wanted to personally help out with further efforts to make the rink more environmentally friendly. The latest planned upgrades were to insulate the perimeter walls of the rink, as well as adding two high efficiency gas furnaces to heat the ice surface area."

Here is a statement from Randy Ostberg who is a Past President of the DC Arena.

"Farming has evolved into practices that focus on sustainability of the land. Our current methods of farming are also starting to focus on reducing our carbon footprint because of climate change. I wanted to support the arena, but I wanted the same principles that we are trying to follow in our farming practice to be the focus. When I heard about the insulation project, it was a perfect fit. It feels like it lines up with what I feel is really important in our community and the world right now. I approached the committee to find out more and I decided it was a project that I could get behind."

As a result, Ostberg wrote a cheque for $20,000 as a way to support these improvements at the rink.

"Dominion City Recreation and the Dominion City Arena would really like to that Randy for his support the efforts of the arena to continue to provide their services in the most sustainable way possible," stated Mateychuk.

Ostberg shared there were two reasons he made this donation.

"The first reason is to give back to the community, and I have the grandkids now, so it's going to be used by my grandkids. This is number one, and to give back to the community. The second one is to bring awareness to the three Rs (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle)."

Mateychuk says it's donations like Osterberg's that have helped pay for the projects that are really making a sustainable difference.

"Immediately, the insulation has made a big difference. When it was -34 outside, we were seeing the ice temperature at -3 to -5 degrees, which in a year without insulation it would have been cracking and it would have been in the -20 range, which isn't healthy for the ice and it isn't healthy for the equipment around it. So, immediately the insulation has stabilized the interior temperature of the ice surface area, which has been great."

Mateychuk is grateful for all the community support the projects have received.

"We've had a lot of support from the business community and from other individuals who have, in our fundraising efforts over the last two years, helped support the rink. Every donation large and small is important because it got us to the point where we could do some work that we never really thought we had the money for, so all of these donations have been important."