Anaheim, Disney Study Joint Effort to Build Ice Rink : Venture: Facility would provide practice site for new hockey team and recreational skating for the public.

ANAHEIM — The Walt Disney Co. and city officials are exploring the possibility of a joint venture to build an ice rink where Disney’s new hockey team could practice and the public could skate, the mayor said Friday.

“We believe the project has great potential, but it would take time to work out the details,” Mayor Tom Daly said. “It could be beneficial to everyone.”

Issues that need to be worked out, Daly said, are financing, location and management.

“There are a number of possible sites within our redevelopment areas that are being considered,” Daly said. He declined to identify them.

The mayor said the rink would be used by Disney’s expansion hockey team for practice during the season and by the public for recreation.

“Much of the time, the ice wouldn’t be needed for practice purposes by the professional hockey team,” Daly said. “I’m sure many of our residents and community groups would be interested in using the rink during these times.”

He added: “If it’s packaged properly, it could have economic benefits as well as community benefits. It may be possible to include restaurants and retail stores in the package.”

Ken Green, a spokesman for Disney Development Corp., would not comment on any negotiations. He said that as long as Disney is negotiating a lease agreement for the team to play in the new Anaheim Arena, the company would not “disclose other aspects” of the team’s operations.

The search for a practice site comes as a new skating center opens in Anaheim, the second of two public rinks now operating in Orange County.

Disney real estate officials met about three weeks ago with the management of the Glacial Garden Ice Arena about using it as a practice site. Rink manager Errol Foremaster said he was surprised, therefore, that Disney and the city were thinking of building a new site.

“We have the perfect facility right here,” Foremaster said.

He said about the only hesitation involved the height of the ceilings. They are 17 feet high, far lower than the cavernous Forum in Inglewood or the Anaheim Arena. But Foremaster said the ceilings have not been a problem. Only about a half dozen hockey pucks have caromed off them since hockey play began in October.

Glacial Garden, which has two rinks under one roof, was built in a warehouse with hockey in mind. Also, Foremaster said, the site was chosen to be near Disneyland and the Anaheim Arena so that visiting hockey teams--if not the home team--could use it as a practice site.

While he said business has been good so far, he said a new competing rink could hurt that.

The only other rink in Orange County is Ice Capades Chalet in Costa Mesa. And while ice shows are sometimes held at the Anaheim Convention Center, officials say that rink is only temporary. It is built for a show, then taken apart.

“There is definitely a lack of ice rinks,” said Steve Benson, manager of Ice Capades Chalet. “The only (rink) south of us is in San Diego.” There is talk of new rinks for Laguna Beach or Huntington Beach, but the local skating choices are still a far cry from a few years ago when there were several rinks around the county.