News 29 November 2022
Quebec City borough of La Cité-Limoilou will have its own BLEU BLANC BOUGE rink
After announcing earlier tonight the donation of its 14th BLEU BLANC BOUGE rink to the city of Saint-Jérôme, the Montreal Canadiens Children’s Foundation is proud to announce the selection of the city of Quebec and the borough of La Cité-Limoilou as the recipient of its 15th BLEU BLANC BOUGE community rink.
Construction will get underway in the summer of 2024, for an opening scheduled in time for winter 2025. These two new outdoor rinks represent an investment by the Foundation totaling $4 million.
The BLEU BLANC BOUGE program consists of erecting outdoor, refrigerated, and multi-sport rinks, where children from less well-off backgrounds can gather, have fun, and practice physical activity, allowing them to discover the benefits of a healthy and physically active lifestyle.
“This new BLEU BLANC BOUGE rink is part of our desire to build this type of quality multi-sport infrastructure in various disadvantaged areas across the province in order to reach and get a large number of young people moving. In addition to the Foundation’s investments of over $1.5 million in the Capitale-Nationale region over the past 22 years, this new rink will provide children and families in these communities with additional sports facilities where they can adopt healthy lifestyle habits by staying active throughout the entire year,” said Pierre Boivin, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Montreal Canadiens Children’s Foundation.
The borough of La Cité-Limoilou has a rapidly growing youth population and a very high concentration of both elementary and secondary schools with high indices of deprivation. The needs for accessible community sports infrastructure are great, especially since physical activity serves as a valuable tool for school perseverance among many vulnerable young people in the area. The sustained mobilization of experienced community partners around healthy lifestyle issues for children aged 4 to 17, as evidenced by successful collaborative projects like those of Patro Laval and Patro Roc-Amadour, as well as programs from organizations like Motivaction Jeunesse, results in more active participation and better health for youth in the region.
“A huge thank you to the Montreal Canadiens Children’s Foundation for believing in the importance of sport for all. This location is perfectly designated to serve the population of Quebec, being at the junction between two boroughs where the concentration of young families is very high. The city welcomes this strong gesture for the health of our youth with great enthusiasm,” added Bruno Marchand, Mayor of Quebec City.
In order to ensure the success of this program, both in terms of activation and appropriation of the facilities by local youth, the Foundation formed a dynamic partnership with M361 – formerly known as Québec en Forme – both sharing the common ultimate goal of improving the health of children in underprivileged areas. It works closely with the Foundation in selecting the location of the next rink and community partners to efficiently implement the program and assess the impact of this initiative.
About the BLEU BLANC BOUGE program
The BLEU BLANC BOUGE rinks are built in accordance with NHL standards and dimensions (200 feet by 85 feet) and feature ice quality that meets the highest professional rinks standards, while offering the versatility to enjoy other sports over the course of the year. The skating season takes place from the end of November until mid-March, while various types of ball games like basketball, ball hockey and various other sporting activities can be played on the concrete base slab in the spring, summer and fall months. Since 2009, six community outdoor rinks have been built on the island of Montreal, in the boroughs of Villeray-Saint-Michel-Parc-Extension, Montréal-Nord, Verdun, Lasalle, Côte-des-Neiges-Notre-Dame-de-Grâce and Ahuntsic-Cartierville, as well as in Longueuil, Laval, Sherbrooke, Trois-Rivières, Joliette, Val-d’Or and Saguenay. The rinks set to be completed over the next two year, in Saint-Jérôme and in Quebec City, will bring the total to 15. The BLEU BLANC BOUGE rinks built since 2019 are distinguished by the use of a new energy efficient refrigeration system powered by CO2 and by their universally accessible facilities for the practice of sledge hockey.