Hockey participation is up. Youth and adult leagues are growing. Hockey fever has again consumed our area during the Tampa Bay Lightning’s 2016 Stanley Cup playoff run.
The timing couldn’t be any better for ZMitch LLC managing partner Gordie Zimmermann, as he oversees the construction of the $20-million, 150,000-sq.-ft. Florida Hospital Center Ice (FHCI) complex in Wesley Chapel, which is taking shape just north of the interchange of S.R. 56 and I-75.
Zimmermann gave a sneak preview hard hat tour May 25 of the progress for roughly 175 Greater Wesley Chapel Chamber of Commerce members and other local leaders.
The massive facility — Zimmermann calls FHCI the “largest skating complex south of New York” — will feature three NHL-sized hockey rinks, and one Olympic-size rink (which is bigger than an NHL rink), as well as a 17,000-sq.ft. multi-sports pad that can accommodate ice skating, curling, basketball, volleyball, lacrosse and other sports, while also hosting corporate events, much like Top Golf in Brandon.
The complex will also have a sports-themed restaurant on the second floor, overlooking the rinks, a sports performance center and one for sports skills which can also accommodate training and activities like yoga, pilates and even dance classes.
Florida Hospital, which secured naming rights last May, will also have staff on hand.
“This hard hat tour was for the business community, to understand how the building works,’’ Zimmermann said. “Business are going to reap the rewards (of the facility), from restaurants to rental companies, hotels, gas stations, you name it. Everyone here is going to benefit.”
Zimmermann said the economic impact of FHCI, according to a study the developers commissioned, will be $20-30 million a year, and maybe more, as high school, college and National Hockey League teams (on their way to games at Amalie Arena or in Miami against the Florida Panthers) fill hotel rooms, mostly on the weekends. He said about two million visitors are projected to visit FHCI annually.
“It looks great, this place is going to be incredible,’’ said District 2 Pasco County commissioner Mike Moore, who took the tour last week. “I think you’re going to see a big impact on local businesses.”
Zimmerman said plenty of opportunities exist for local businesses looking for exposure. He said companies can buy anything from naming rights to the rinks (on the ice or dasher boards, for example) to any of the three zamboni machines (which most people are familiar with when they resurface the ice between periods of a hockey game).
The Lightning’s recent success on the ice, and the organization’s impressive work off the ice with its stellar community outreach program – including sponsoring the Bay area’s 18-team high school league — continues to help cultivate local interest in hockey, which will be the main event at FHCI on most nights. But, Zimmermann says it will be far from the only event.
“The success of the Lightning is definitely helping create even more excitement for hockey in the area, and that’s good for us,’’ says Zimmermann, who says he already has a line of hockey teams and skaters eager to start using the facility. He is hoping for a soft opening of FHCI in September, with a Grand Opening roughly six weeks after that.
“It’s definitely big,’’ said WCCC CEO Hope Allen. “I think it’s going to completely change the landscape of Wesley Chapel. It really solidifies us as a destination regionally, nationally and even internationally.”
Two weeks ago, Zimmermann visited to the refrigeration company that will be handling the ice at FHCI.
CIMCO, which is based in Toronto, a city with more than 200 ice rinks, is the largest ice rink builder in the world, says Zimmerman. It has installed more than 5,000 ice surfaces worldwide, including at 80 percent of the NHL facilities.
CIMCO already has piped two of the rinks at FHCI, laying down roughly 13.5 miles of polyethylene pipe per rink. By the time all of the rinks are completed, more than 65 miles of refrigerated pipe will have been laid beneath the surface. “Like piping all the way to Ellenton,’’ Zimmermann quipped. “It’s all very high-tech equipment.”
So high-tech that each rink could have its own atmosphere. Figure skaters like their ice a little softer, so temperatures could be kept at 24-26 degrees on one rink, and 22-24 on another for hockey players, who prefer a harder surface.
The temperature five feet above the ice will be roughly 55 degrees, and the stands should clock in at a cool 65, Zimmermann said. The building’s lobby temperature will be like any other commercial building.
According to membership statistics, USA Hockey, the official governing body for hockey in America, has added almost 100,000 playing members since 1999, from 434,678 to 533,172.
In the southeastern region, however, Florida now has more registered hockey players than any other state, with more than 12,000, almost twice as many as any other southeastern state, with the exception of Virginia (10,063) and Maryland (9,607).
But, to keep that growth rising requires more sheets of ice for teams to practice on.
Right now, practice for local high school teams at Wesley Chapel, Wiregrass Ranch, Wharton and Freedom can involve trying to find time in Brandon or a longer drive to other ice facilities (like the JP Igloo rink in Ellenton and the Tampa Bay Skating Academy in Oldsmar), and there are few places for others, such as adult league players, figure skaters and speed skaters to train.
Nearly a dozen high school varsity and junior varsity teams will use FHCI as their home ice. Zimmerman says the facility will also be a boon for girls hockey, another growing sport.
“Nobody has ever been able to give (girls hockey) any ice time,’’ he says.
Curling, a Canadian sport that seems to gain a little more fame every Winter Olympics year since becoming an official Olympic sport in 1998, could end up being a big draw, Zimmerman says, similar to how shuffleboard has had a bit of a revival with younger players in St. Petersburg.
The sport, where players slide stones on a sheet of ice towards a target area while teammates, or sweepers, help guide the stones to their mark with a special “broom,” could end up becoming a popular local adult league sport.
“We’re starting a full-blown curling league,’’ Zimmerman said. “I think it’s going to be huge.”
For more information about the FHCI, visit their website at FloridaHospitalCenterIce.com.
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