There was some commotion just north of the Standard and Rosebud Community Arena yesterday as crews broke ground on a new outdoor arena.

The plan for the arena was spurred because of the business of the current indoor arena.

"The pressure that our arena receives currently for ice rentals eliminated opportunities for our youth to use the facility for public skating or free skating. Those opportunities are quite limited for the young people in our community," explained organizer Trent Sungaard. "We are trying to create some opportunity that we had when we were young where we could go skating and play shinny, just unstructured fun and play."

The arena has been funded through some fundraising, but mostly by donors from neighbouring communities and local clubs.

"We received significant support from our local Lions club and the Village of Standard, local businesses have contributed as well. We have had the surveying done at no cost, the excavation at no cost," continues Sungaard. "So there has been a tremendous buy-in from other people that understand what we are trying to do and see the value of having that kind of faculty in our community."

The current project, located just north of the current indoor arena, is in phase one of three possible phases.

"The reason we located it there is because phase one is the slab, phase two could be a connection to the existing ice plant, phase three could be a construction of walls and a roof to shelter it from the weather. Then, of course, it would no longer be an outdoor arena but we would have a twin arena in the community of Standard."