It’s a big ice hockey weekend in the nation’s capital.
I mention this not because the Capitals are back in first place, or because congressmen were scheduled to face off last night against lobbyists at the Verizon Center for the Congressional Hockey Challenge. No, no, no. The hockey event of the weekend is the inaugural East Coast Diversity Classic.
On Saturday and Sunday, two D.C. teams with rosters filled with African-American kids — the Fort Dupont Cannons and the Presidents Hockey Club — will host New York’s Ice Hockey in Harlem. Fifty kids and their families will play and cheer and tour the town.
The back story of the weekend’s tournament is a tortured tale with a happy ending that could get a lot happier — if the right people, such as Ted Leonsis, are willing to help out kids from the rough side of town.
This weekend’s tournament will take place at the Fort Dupont Ice Arena, on Ely Street Southeast, along the northern edge of Fort Dupont Park. It’s east of the Anacostia River, in a majority-black neighborhood. The arena is the only public rink in the city, and it draws teams from posh prep schools, such as St. Albans, to college teams to club leagues.
The rink is on federal land, and the National Park Service had little interest in running an arena. In 1996 NPS moved to shutter the rink. Parents and skaters formed the Friends of Fort Dupont Ice Arena, and the rink has flourished.
The Friends’ signature program is Kids On Ice. It started with 12 skaters. Now 10,000 kids a year learn to skate for free and take classes in figure skating, hockey and speed skating. Kids on Ice survives on donations, fees from school teams, and some public funds from the feds and D.C.
In a breakthrough last year, Adrian Fenty and Vince Gray, in their former roles, convinced the feds to transfer jurisdiction of the property to the District, which is now negotiating ground leases with the Friends for the rink and Nationals who will run a baseball academy nearby.
Now that the Friends of Fort Dupont have control of the land, they want to build a second arena. It would serve more kids, allow for more games, provide the premiere place in the nation for inner-city kids to frolic on the ice. The project will cost $15 million.
Some of the funds raised at last night’s Congressional Hockey Challenge will go to the arena, to help defray the operating expenses that amount to about $1 million a year. But what about the big bucks for the second rink?
Seems as if Capitals owner Leonsis, who was scheduled to attend last night’s game, could make building the new rink one of his goals. Perhaps we could even name it for him.
