On Friday, Black Bear Sports Group, a private equity firm that specializes in ice arena investments, purchased the Igloo at Mount Laurel. The Igloo is a two-sheet ice arena in Mount Laurel, New Jersey in Burlington County. This represents the fifth arena complex in New Jersey that Black Bear has purchased since January 2018:
- Ice Land Skating Center in Hamilton, acquired in January 2018
- Jersey Shore Arena in Wall Township / Farmingdale, acquired in February 2018
- Aspen Ice in Randolph, acquired in October 2019
- Skylands Ice World in Stockholm (Sussex County, NJ), acquired in December 2019
The Igloo acquisition cements Black Bear’s position as the number one private ice arena operator in the State of New Jersey. Other major private players include:
- Comcast Spectacor, an affiliate of the Philadelphia Flyers, owners of three Flyers SkateZone arena complexes in Atlantic City, Pennsauken, and Voorhees, and
- Devils Arena Entertainment LLC, an affiliate of the New Jersey Devils, owners of the Prudential Center and RWJ Barnabas Health Hockey House, which are co-located in Downtown Newark.
Comcast Spectacor and Black Bear own arena complexes a short distance away from the Delaware River in Southeastern Pennsylvania. These complexes should also be factored into any market analysis.
Murry Gunty, CEO of Black Bear, explained the companies strategy in this part of the United States in a release provided to BusinessWire:
The Igloo is a centrally-located hub for ice skating and hockey in southern New Jersey. With Revolution Ice Gardens to the west in Bucks County, PA, and Ice Land Skating Center to the north in Hamilton, NJ, we’re excited to add Igloo to our portfolio of ice rinks in the area. The Jaguars are a very strong Tier-2 youth program and we look forward to finally providing Jaguars players the necessary pipeline to advance to their desired levels through our AAA Mercer Chiefs and Revolution Elite AAA youth programs along with our Junior Hockey teams in the Eastern Hockey League, North American Hockey League and USHL.