Several hockey parents in Chatham-Kent are upset that there is no longer a girl’s dressing room at the Ridgetown Arena.
The South Kent Minor Hockey Board says the municipality decided to lease the room to the Chatham Cyclones AAA hockey team, leaving the girls without a suitable replacement at the East Kent Memorial Arena.
The girl’s dressing room was “comparable” to the boy’s dressing rooms, with benches, hooks, a washroom and a shower. Now parents are complaining that this is a human rights issue and their daughters are not being treated fairly.
SKMHA President Shawn Allen says the original room could accommodate up to 10 girls and their equipment, and it was located in a safe and secluded area with other dressing rooms, away from the public.
Allen says Chatham Kent Facility Services tried to “address this deficiency” using two different rooms, but it has not worked.
In a statement issued to parents on Sunday, Allen wrote a room was created at the front stairwell which opens directly of the lobby, but it did not include a washroom or shower and accommodated only three girls. When the door opened, Allen wrote half the room was visible to the public, notably men leaving the men’s room located about ten feet away.
Allen wrote the handicapped washroom was then converted to a girl’s dressing room after public pressure over “the inadequacy and inappropriateness” of the first room. It has a washroom but no shower. It still only accommodated three girls and was located on the opposite side of the arena, in the middle of the spectator session. That meant the girls had to walk through the lobby to join their teammates and participate in team activities.
Allen says the room currently used by female players is neither adequate nor appropriate.
He adds they minor hockey board has received numerous complaints about the girl’s dressing room from players, parents and coaches.
Mother Jessica Knights-Hall, whose young daughter plays at the arena, says the timing of the change room shuffle is unacceptable.
“Why give the room away before an appropriate room is available (for the girls),” she told CTVNews.ca in a written message. “(Chatham-Kent) should never have approved this UNTIL there was a safe and appropriate room for girls to use.”
Allen’s statement says “By leasing the girl’s dressing room to a Chatham Cyclones AAA Hockey Team, the municipality has created the situation where the female players are treated inequitably. Their efforts to create a substitute dressing room have exacerbated the situation by creating additional inequities.”
The South Kent Minor Hockey Board has requested Chatham-Kent reinstate access to the original girl’s dressing room “in order to restore safety, security, dignity and equality for female players.”
But the municipality’s Supervisor of Recreation Facilities of the Ridgetown District says there are plans to create a new girl’s dressing room early in 2018.
Darren Goyette tells CTV Windsor they are going to renovate the former skate sharpening room to make it suitable for all female hockey players.
It would cost between $5,000 and $10,000 but it still needs to be approved by Chatham-Kent council.
There are only four change rooms at the arena available for daily use.
Goyette adds the initial plan had been to have a replacement change room set up for girls in September, but construction delays pushed the timeline back to at least early 2018.
“We don’t think that we’ve done anything against the Human Rights Code,” Goyette told CTVNews.ca. “We’re aware of that with everything that we try to do.”
