After plenty of pushback from the hockey community, filming at Southdale Community Centre has been reduced.
On Wednesday, Hockey Winnipeg announced that filming at the busy community centre would affect 100 hours of scheduled activities, including roughly 85 hours of ice time.
On Friday, Southdale Community Centre announced in a statement that 71 of the affected 100 hours had been returned.
“We understand this temporary disruption has caused an inconvenience for our stakeholders,” said Southdale Community Centre in a statement. “We appreciate the passion our community has shown and have diligently worked with the film company to lessen the impact as much as possible. We are grateful for the measures they have taken to ensure this.”
They say the decision to allow filming at the centre was made with many factors in mind.
“The fees received will help offset any increased costs and debts that we face annually to operate our Centre so we may continue to maintain a first-class facility that offers excellent programming.”
They also clarified when the rinks will be open and closed by releasing the following schedule.
- January 1– New Year’s Day – Closed
- January 2, 3, 4 – Regularly scheduled arena programming
- Jan 5 to 20– West Rink closed for production
- Jan 5 to 20 – East Rink open
- Jan 21– 3pm West and East Rink back open with regularly scheduled programming
The production at the centre of this recent controversy is Sticks and Stones, a film about American curler John Shuster and his journey to Olympic gold.
The film has been shooting in Winnipeg since Nov. 17, 2025.
