250-353-2855 kasloarena@gmail.com

Welcome!

Welcome to the Kaslo and District Arena. The arena is a municipally owned facility, funded partially through the RDCK and the Village of Kaslo and operated by a volunteer board. The arena was built in 1974 through the efforts of a few community minded people and a whole community that continues to this day. The dedicated volunteer board members, past and present, continue to strive to provide a facility that is affordable, safe and fun!

Last year, with the help of a federal grant and a generous donation from Murray Pearson’s estate, we were able to replace our condensers. chillers and alarm system. All projects that desperately needed doing.

We were also able to purchase a new score clock. The old one we could not even get parts for! We overhauled our Olympia and replaced all of the toilets as well as did some much needed painting. Our operating grant from the Regional District covers approximately 40% of our operating. We strive to continue to keep our user fees low and affordable so any extras we need to either fundraise or depend on the generosity of people like Murray, who loved the arena.

This year we have had to increase our fees slightly to offset the rising costs of operating. Please check our website for our new fees, rental fees, board members and a schedule for use. We do offer rentals of meeting rooms and ice times so please check the calendar for availability or contact our arena manager, Damon at kasloarenamanager@gmail.com or phone 250-353-2855 

Coming to Kaslo for hockey? visitkaslo.com has all the information you need to make your stay easy and enjoyable!

The Arena viewing room is a great rental space for dances, large meetings, or kids play time.
Ask about our Birthday Party Packages

250-353-2855

 

Mountie and the Goalie
®Rick Wiltse

Shinny on Shamrock Lake

It’s a scene played out thousands of times in thousands of places across Canada – the familiar sound of skates biting into crisp ice, the cold, clear, blue sky with fluffy white clouds, the almost perfect silence, save for the energetic grunts of exertion from the skaters as they circle the ice and take the occasional shot on goal.

This, they all knew would be different – their days of planning culminating in a day like no other – with memories to last a lifetime.

“They” are the players on a rec hockey team called the “AfterBurners “from the picturesque village of Kaslo, a small town in the West Kootenay’s of British Columbia, who lace up their skates every Saturday night during the hockey season for some competitive hard-nosed hockey. One of the Afterburner players, Erik Matthews, a helicopter pilot by day, had recently been to a glacial lake near Invermere, high up in the Purcell mountain range, and had been openly musing with his team mates about how amazing it would be to get to play shinny on this lake. Erik’s excitement was contagious and the serious planning of making it all happen began – it was an opportunity far too good to pass up.

The excitement was electric, and when it finally happened, twenty two hockey players – two 11 man teams one from the East and one from Kaslo in the West Kootenay, had the opportunity of their recreational hockey careers to play pond hockey at an altitude of approximately 9000 feet in the Purcell mountains. Eleven skaters at a time were shuttled up to the glacial fed Shamrock Lake, via helicopter to a pristine location for a hockey game that all Canadian hockey players dream of.

One of the Kaslo Afterburners was the RCMP Detachment Commander at Kaslo Cpl. Shaun Begg. Cpl. Begg had brought along his iconic Red Serge with hopes of obtaining a photo to capture this experience, for a personal keepsake, or maybe a photo for his office or to place on Christmas card. “To me it was a no-brainer “says Cpl. Begg “the best way to capture this most Canadian of moments was to get a few pictures of me in my red serge, another symbol of Canada.” During a lull in the action Cpl. BEGG donned the iconic red Serge and took to the ice. Pictures were taken and the Afterburners captain Rick Wiltse snapped the photo that was eventually sent to Cpl. BEGG’S Supervisor who in turn forwarded to the BC RCMP Twitter feed. In short order this photo went viral and was dubbed by CBC to be “The Most Canadian Photo Ever.”

The rest as they say is history. The “Most Canadian Photo, Ever “ was born.