Roller Hockey Booster Club Plans to Support Programs at Alpharetta Park

A group of 15 roller hockey enthusiasts and one Alpharetta Recreation Commission member met at this weekend to establish a booster club to save the park from a possible conversion to a salt and sand storage depot.

After two seasons of too few players registering to support a city sponsored youth roller hockey program, and dwindling numbers of city residents on the few adult league teams, Alpharetta was ready to consider converting the park for different uses. Proposed was a plan to convert the covered rink and a large part of the parking lot into storage space for the Engineering & Public Works Department, with the other rink becoming a trail-head for a future section of the Big Creek Greenway connecting with Forsyth County's greenway on McGinnis Ferry Road.

But a large number of parents and roller hockey players asked the Recreation Commission at its May meeting to give them a chance to make roller hockey programs at the park sustainable. They proposed forming a booster club.

Paul J. Bello, a roller hockey coach whose school team practices at Union Hill, has been at the forefront of the booster club efforts, and he chaired the meeting at the park Saturday morning.

"I think we made progress because we got the important bullet points out there to focus on so that we can delineate on how it's going to get done and who's going to do it," Bello said.

Since that meeting he's sent out some unofficial minutes with proposed points for the booster club's bylaw and mission statement. And he assigned committee leaders based on what those 15 adults said they wanted to do.

"There's a lot to be done, but there's light at the end of the tunnel. And the upside is the city really wants to support this thing but we need to partner with the and help make it viable. And I don't think that's going to be too difficult as long as people will do the work," Bello said.

Recreation Commission member Jim Cregge volunteered to be its liaison with the booster club. He also made the successful motion to ask City Council to give the booster club a year to head the roller hockey programs at Union Hill sustainable.

"I think this is a great effort. This is something we tried to get going four years ago, but now we've got some impetus, we've got a year to start showing some progress," Cregge said.

He told the booster club organizers that three or four years ago when he championed renovations to the covered rink to try to solve a condensation problem–spending $250,000 on the fixes–the city asked for a booster club to be formed, but nothing happened. Now he sees a difference, and thinks this group will show progress at the park.

"There's a good core of people here. The key is they've got to start bringing in the young people, start getting people involved at an early age. If we can get something going here, we believe it's going to become a very successful program to make us once again a viable program," Cregge said.

The booster club plans to commit itself to helping create development programs and leagues, such as "mini-mite," "mite" and "squirt" teams for younger players.

School teams that practices at Union Hill include: Alpharetta High School A Team, Alpharetta High School B Team and Alpharetta Middle School team; Northview High School, River Trail Middle School, River Watch, Johns Creek High School,  Autry Mill Middle School, Chattahoochee High School,  Milton High School A Team, Milton High School B Team, Milton High School C Team, Hopewell Middle School A Team, Hopewell Middle School B Team, West Forsyth High School and Woodward Academy.