In late August, The Anchorage Daily News reported one hockey arena within the City of Anchorage was being used as a homeless shelter and the city council was considering repurposing another, rather than installing ice for the hockey season.
Sullivan Arena was opened as a mass shelter in late March to provide additional space for social distancing which had caused overcrowding at two permanent homeless shelters in the city. The Anchorage Assembly (city council) met on August 26 to address the possibility of using Ben Boeke Ice Arena for even more shelter space. Previously, Ben Boeke had been used from March until June for that purpose, after the COVID-19 emergency had been declared.
According to the article, “A large group of protesters, including many children and young adults in hockey jerseys, gathered outside the Loussac Library {on August 26} to oppose the city’s potential use of the Ben Boeke Ice Arena as a homeless shelter.”
A large number of the players from the University of Alaska Anchorage Men’s Varsity Hockey Team appear to have participated in this protest. This is not entirely surprising because the team was eliminated by the University of Alaska Board of Regents in the latest round of University of Alaska budget cuts. So the Save Hockey protests in Anchorage conflate these two issues to some extent.
Speaking about the Ben Boeke Ice Arena situation, Kirk Kullberg, the Anchorage Hockey Association mite director said, “There’s got to be other places where you can put the homeless. There are not many places you can have ice.”
After the protest, ADN reported that Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz and his administration decided against using Ben Boeke Ice Arena as a homeless shelter and that they were proceeding with laying new ice in the two-surface facility. Both were expected to be available by Labor Day.
The article goes on to say that ice at Ben Boeke was removed in March due to the pandemic, and the facility was used as a mass shelter for “homeless women, couples and LGBTQ residents early in the pandemic but closed it for that purpose in early June.”
Addressing the Berkowitz Administration’s decision, Anchorage Mite Director Kullberg said, “We’re going to have over 4,000 kids participating in more than 500 hours” of ice time per month in those rinks.