City of Brantford Council unanimously supported an initiative to build a new open-air ice rink at Ward 4’s Conklin Park during its Committee of the Whole meeting on Tuesday, October 7, 2025.
Free Sport for Growth, a non-profit organization that raises money to provide sports equipment and promote outdoor activities for children, is spearheading the project.
Dave Levac, former MPP for Brant and Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, started the group alongside Ross Enslev in the late months of 2022, early 2023. Since then, the group has provided free sports equipment to approximately 3,000 children and brought in several local community volunteers to support the effort.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Levac and Enslev were accompanied by Bob Phillips of J.H. Cohoon Engineering and Rob Lorenz, who works for Charles Jones Industrial, to present their plan for a covered, open-air NHL sized outdoor rink.
Levac explained that aside from the ice, the facility will also have bleachers, a canteen, room for a zamboni and refrigeration equipment, a workspace for Free Sport for Growth to do giveaways, and a gymnasium with access to washrooms and change rooms.
It was also noted that in the summer, the proposed facility will provide additional space for racquet sports and additional day camp or daycare spaces.
“This is going to be an offer to the City that, as some people characterize it, you couldn’t refuse,” he said.
Levac went on to say that the project is intended to be constructed at no cost to Brantford taxpayers, that the Free Growth for Sport committee will do all the fundraising for the project, and that Phillips has already started working on the designs pro bono.
He also added that any of the remaining money from the project, as well as any other charitable donations, naming rights and advertisement opportunities, will go towards making the facility self-sufficient.
“This is going to be a pro bono gift to the city,” he said. “At the present time, the lease agreement would be that we own the park for the short period of time it takes to build it, and then we just simply break the lease and hand it back to the city to run.”
All that Free Sport for Growth is asking for in return, is that the organization gets four hours a day, seven days a week for sports programming.
“We want to negotiate with the Parks Department on how to schedule this,” said Levac. “We would really hope to have that time scheduled at reasonable hours in which the kids are not going to be in school, maybe just before dinner or just after dinner, and then open up Saturday and Sunday to a more palatable time frame.”
The resolution states that the City will establish a separate account to receive donations and distribute funds towards this project, and will issue donation receipts to donors who contribute to the project.
Speaking to the item, Ward 4 Councillor Linda Hunt said she was “thrilled” about the initiative and its location.
“I grew up on Campbell Street, between Brock and Rawdon, and I spent my youth at Conklin Park. It was a very vibrant park in our neighbourhood that was enjoyed by a lot of children, and a lot of kids that I grew up with are now very excited to see something else going there,” she said. “It’s a park that has been somewhat left to be deserted; the playground equipment and baseball diamond there have been decommissioned and now it’s really a vacant piece of land.”
Hunt’s wardmate, Councillor Richard Carpenter added that Conklin Park was a “wonderful” location and he thought that the initiative would be “very successful.”
“I should note that Henry Street, which is just around the corner, is an intensification quarter that is going to have a lot more high-rise development and kids with no backyards because they’re living in apartments,” he said. “They’re going to now have access to an ice rink in the winter for playing hockey and a gymnasium for other things and so this will be a game changer.”
Following other comments of support from the rest of the councillors, the item was then unanimously supported, and it will come back to council for final approval on Tuesday, October 28.
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
