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The NHL All-Star Game being in San Jose isn’t just good news for ice hockey fans. It’s also meant new life for the popular but aging roller hockey rink at San Jose’s Roosevelt Park.
The $500,000 project — part of the NHL’s Legacy initiative — provided for a new all-weather surface, dasher boards, ADA-compliant bleachers and equipment like hockey sticks, goalie equipment, nets and balls. The upgrades were unveiled Thursday afternoon in a ceremony that included NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman; Sharks All-Star players Brent Burns, Joe Pavelski and Erik Karlsson; Sharks President John Tortora; and mascot S.J. Sharkie, who brought along a trio of NHL mascots.
“We are committed to making a lasting impact off the ice in the communities where we play,” Bettman said, adding that this was the most the league had committed to a Legacy project among more than two dozen in North America. “Long after All-Star Weekend has come and gone, this rink will be here as our commitment to the community.”
The rink originally opened in January 1995 as part of a redesign of Roosevelt Park. Besides roller hockey, the rink also serves as a venue for lacrosse, roller skating and roller derbies. San Jose City Councilman Raul Peralez, addressing an audience Thursday that included students from Piedmont Middle School and Noble Elementary, said the rink helped make hockey dreams come true in a city where ice just doesn’t happen on its own.
“When the city of San Jose put together this rink at the Roosevelt Community Center, kids like you had the opportunity to play hockey,” he said. “Now, that’s been renewed for generations to come.”
After the ribbon cutting, the students got a chance to try out the new equipment with Burns, Karlsson, Pavelski and the mascots.
San Jose resident Laura Wolford attended the ribbon cutting and said it’s a true community resource. Her two boys, now 17 and 20, learned to play hockey on the rink and now play in New York and Canada. “They started right here,” she said, adding that previous efforts to refurbish the rink never got off the ground. “It’s nicer than we’ve ever seen it.”
In addition to the improvements unveiled Thursday, future plans include a water drainage system and better lighting for nighttime activities. The funding — provided by the Sharks Foundation, SAP and the NHL — also covers costs for staffing hockey camps and expanded programming at the rink for the next year, scholarships for hockey camps and Sharks-branded street hockey equipment — 280 sticks, 24 goalie sticks and 12 goalie kits.
