We've all seen the kids at Lacombe Generals or Red Deer Rebels games finding any little corner they can to play mini stick hockey.
 
There will soon be a new venue for the action in downtown Lacombe as the YU Turn Youth Centre plans to install an indoor mini-stick rink late this summer.

It was kids that pitched the idea according to Director of Chapter Development for Central Alberta Youth Unlimited Ben Rogers.

“We get kids in here all the time and we ask them you know what would you like to see in this building so that we remain current, and a couple of the kids put out that they would love to see a mini stick rink. So I kind of jumped online and looking around to see what it actually looks like and then just got really excited, it’s like having your own mini hockey rink indoors”.

Rogers says the rink is “probably going to be about 12’ x 18’, it will have a puck board floor and puck board walls and things like that, and we’ll paint it up, put stripes on it and make it look like a mini hockey rink so the kids can play on their knees and they have these tiny little sticks and foam balls and they just kind of go for it”.

The City of Lacombe has awarded the project $3,000 in funding through their Recreation and Culture Grant Program which Rogers says will cover all of the material costs and they'll engage some community help to install the rink hopefully in August.

In terms of the work they do at YU Turn, Rogers says it’s a great fit.

“We’re very much about relational youth centres, so that we can actually create an environment where kids can be active and that we can be involved in the process rather than them just staring at a video screen”.