Brandon Valley breaks ground on new indoor hockey facility

BRANDON, S.D. (Dakota News Now) - Work began last week on a new, multimillion-dollar hockey facility in Brandon.

The Brandon Valley Hockey Association will soon be calling Aspen Park home. Last week, crews began clearing the land as they prepared for the groundbreaking ceremony Tuesday at 4 p.m.

Brandon Valley Hockey Association President Tom Gruenig said the facility will benefit the entire community.

“For communities like this, this is going to be huge for Brandon because it’s just going to bring more kids into the area. We did projections on the tax revenue that it’s going to bring in and it’s going to help out tremendously because we’re going to be having tournaments. We’re going to be bringing kids in from Rapid City, Pierre, and Aberdeen. We’ll be bringing in people from Iowa and Minnesota to do these tournaments that we’ll eventually start to do,” said Gruenig.

Since the organization was founded in 2011, they have been using an outdoor facility, but the goal was to someday play under a roof.

“It’s been amazing. I’ve been with the Association since we founded in 2011, so this is a dream come true with a lot of people who are with the Association or have been with the Association over the years. So, it’s awesome,” said Bryan Seaver, a member of the fundraising committee.

The hope is to get the footings in before winter and then, construction will begin in the spring. The end goal is to be ready to move in by the beginning of next season, either in November or December.

“There’s a lot of excitement. I guess I’m not too excited until we really start erecting the building, but there’s a lot of hope that it’s actually coming true. Nobody believed that we were going to be able to do it. It’s a $6 million project, and it’s a lot of money we got to raise, but we’re pulling it off and everybody is excited about it,” said Gruenig.

The goal is for other ice sports to also take place in the building, including figure skating, curling, sled hockey and broomball.

“This is really going to be a great thing for Brandon. There is really no facility like this right now, and we anticipate that the building could be used for other events, not just hockey, during the winter months. We’re not going to have ice in there during the off-season or during the summer, so it’s just a big empty building and it could be used for a variety of different community events and other youth sport activities, that sort of thing. It will be a big impact to the economic leaf to the city and tax revenue and it will just spur other development in this park area,” said Seaver.

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