Community Sports Complex

[LItoCT]

Hi, I don't want to be a shill for Trinity but I just wanted to let anyone who wanted to know that Trinity's Community Sports Complex hockey rink is opening on Friday November 17th with a 4 pm Women's game and a 7:30 pm Mens game. I know its not the Whalers but it should be free (if its not it would be a nominal cost i think). I recently toured the facility and there seemed to be several community lounges and I've been told that the rink will be open from November to March and will have 300 rental skates, though no one knows yet when public skating will be or how much it will cost. Let's just hope that Trinity actually lives up to the Community aspect of the hockey rink. -- anyway, just thought I'd let you guys know, it should be a blast, most Trinity students have never seen a Trin hockey game since they played at Kingswood.

Edit: Also for those who don't know the rink is on New Britain and Broad.

[MadVlad]

That facility looks nice from the outside. It's about time Hartford had it's own rink....

[drc72]

I've seen the outside as well looks good.

[MadVlad]

I drove by again today, this time on the New Britain Ave side, that part looks really, really good...

[LItoCT]

Yeah, they finally started doing some nice-landscaping to an otherwise so-so building, say what you want about Trin, but they know how to landscape. I just hope that Trin stays commited to the community aspect of the Community Sports Complex.

[ctman987]

Everything could be better and Trinity's connection with Hartford could always be better (everything CAN be better)...but Hartford and Trinity do have a good relationship

I go to school at Manhattan College in the Riverdale section of the Bronx and just last week in our school paper was an article about how the school and students care more about what is going on in other countries then in the bronx...the school acutally addresses everything as Riverdale, NY when Riverdale is actually a part of the Bronx

[LItoCT]

Well, if anyone is interested the Bantams and the Lady Bants both lost on friday but there must have been 1000 people in the stands during the mens game and afterwards I have never seen so many feet on New Britain - with the bar only a few storefronts away it worked out well. In any case, they are beginning to experiment with public skating - opening the rink to the Trinity community (anyone with ID cards) on Dec 2 and 3 - undoubtedly this is an attempt to work out any kinks (logistics of renting skates, charging admission, and such) out of the system before opening to the general public. I'll post when it is open to the public though.

[Luca Brasi]

Didn't Trinity have a plan to rehab Zion St like they did to Broad on the east side of campus? Whatever happened to that?

[LItoCT]

Didn't Trinity have a plan to rehab Zion St like they did to Broad on the east side of campus? Whatever happened to that?

[drc72]

At least the complex got built.

[MadVlad]

I think Evan Dobelle is free again, maybe get him back on the payroll....

[LItoCT]

I don't think they'd touch Dobelle after whatever happened in Hawaii - he's got a stigma on his name now. They brought in President Jones for one reason, to fundraise, and he is doing very well but the damage from years of mismanagement aren't going to be fixed overnight.

[MadVlad]

Was Dobelle really that bad? I remember they thought it was a crushing defeat to lose him to Hawaii. I'm assuming all he did was mortgage the future for the present?

[LItoCT]

Dobelle was actually very good for Trinity at the time he was here, we have a better physical plant because of him, but whether he's responsible or not (and I say not, I think it was mismanagement at lower levels) Trinity is in a really bad financial situation right about now. Luckily President Jones is one hell of a fundraiser but it is still going to be at least a few years before Trinity could even participate in anything near the scale of the Learning Corridor (another Dobelle development).

[ctman987]

We ran out of money. Seriously though, don't expect too much from Trinity as far as the outside world is concerned with the budget crisis, they've been firing adjunct professors left and right and money is very, very tight. The only reason the Community Sports Complex was built now to my understanding is because if we hadn't of built it within a certain timeframe we would have lost millions in state subsidies for the facility and would have had to build it 5 or 10 years down the road with our own money - as it stands even with state aid fundraising is still incomplete for the building - so its sad but Trinity is not going to be in a position to help Hartford for a while, in part because we're still paying for things we did in the late 90's and early 2000's under president Dobelle who was very pro-neighborhood (spearheading the Learning Corridor, etc.).