Sombre mood among winter sports community as the JCube rink shuts down
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SINGAPORE – When the curtains finally came down on the JCube mall on Sunday,
For many, the 30-metre by 60-metre facility has been integral to the growth of their respective sports and the loss of the venue is a cause for concern.
Singapore Ice Hockey Association (Siha) men’s development director Joewe Lam recalled how games against expatriates often ended with lopsided scores as big as 15-0.
Things have improved significantly since then, with the national men’s team achieving several breakthroughs on the international stage in recent years. In 2019, they bagged a historic silver medal at the SEA Games in the Philippines.
Three years later, they made their world championship debut in Division IV, winning a bronze, while the youth team clinched silver at the Under-20 Asia and Oceania Championships.
Lam said: “We have a lot of young boys coming up who are doing very well. For the past 10 to 12 years in this rink, we did the best we could, we really pushed ourselves in terms of training, we never gave up on this sport.”
The Rink at JCube is also a training venue for national athletes from the Singapore Ice Skating Association (Sisa). The country’s only other ice rink, which is smaller, is at Leisure Park Kallang.
National figure skater McKayla Ong, 17, cried when she heard that JCube was going to be demolished to make way for a 40-storey residential development that will include commercial space on the first and second storeys.
She said: “I was shocked into silence... I have always been passionate about figure skating and I began to worry about my skating career.”
National figure skater McKayla Ong is worried about how the closure of the JCube rink will affect her career.
PHOTO: PHILIP AU
It has not always been easy for athletes like her, who have often had to train outside the rink’s official operating hours which meant they would be at the venue in the early hours of the morning or late at night, while having to juggle their studies and work.
But even this gruelling training schedule is something that McKayla, who has represented Singapore at International Skating Union (ISU) Junior Grand Prix competitions, will miss.
She and national team short track skater Xu Jing Feng, who got into the sport about a decade ago after seeing skaters at the JCube rink piqued his interest, cannot help but feel emotional about the closure.
Xu, who is 19 and a SEA Games gold medallist, said: “These memories, some fun such as time spent together or eating together after training, and some unpleasant as they mostly filled with pain endured during training, are some that I will look back fondly on and reminisce about from time to time.”
National team short track skater Xu Jing Feng will look back fondly on the time spent with his teammates and friends, as well as the tough training sessions he had at the JCube ice rink.
PHOTO: JEROME QUEK
Lam said the mood was sombre last Tuesday, as the national ice hockey team finished training and stayed back to take photos with their teammates and friends. The association hosted a tournament for the community last week and the national team had a final training session on Sunday before the mall’s shutters fell for the last time.
With Singapore’s sole Olympic-sized rink gone, the associations are looking overseas to continue running their programmes.
Sisa is making arrangements for its athletes to train at neighbouring rinks ahead of regional competitions and will work with Sport Singapore to get a new training and competitions facility.
For example, the skaters will train in Bangkok before the Asian Open Figure Skating Trophy and Asian Open Short Track Skating Trophy in August and September in the Thai capital. Meanwhile, the ice hockey team will likely train twice a week in Johor Bahru.
But some are worried by the lack of regular time on ice. Lee Chow Ying, a figure skating coach since 2000, said: “For the skaters who have come so far in the past few years, the lack of training facilities will take its toll, as it is impossible to even maintain their current standard without sufficient regular training.”
Lee, who won silver at the 2009 ISU Adult Figure Skating Competition, added: “The future of the sport will be on hold. Without a rink, we are unable to find and develop new talent, and our pool of skaters will shrink.”
Lam is concerned about attrition as well, noting that this is already an issue the sport faces even when it had a facility here owing to a variety of factors from cost to commitment.
Commuting across the Causeway will not help and he expects progress to slow.
The former national player said: “It took an eight- to 10-year programme to prepare these guys (and get to where we are), but any three years of no rink means three years of no improvement, of stopped development...
“We may not be able to maintain the improvement curve, but we need to sustain the sport.”
But he is encouraged by how his players and their parents have shown support, adding: “They have cried in this rink, sweat, bled, fractured and broken bones playing this sport, so it doesn’t mean that when this rink closes down, we’re going to give up on the sport.”
Sisa also launched its 25th Anniversary Fund to provide financial support and help defray the cost of increased travel. Sisa president Alison Chan said: “While we are working on a new rink, we remain committed to supporting the growth of our sport.”
Those interested to support the fund can visit giving.sg/singapore-ice-skating-association/25thanniversaryfund
