Many kids have a swing set in their back yard, or maybe a playhouse. Then there’s 14-year-old Matt Weinberg of Buffalo Grove. A swing and a slide? Forget it. Matt and 10-year-old brother Josh have dueling indoor ice rinks at their disposal. “Yeah, I’d say it’s pretty cool,” Matt understated.
Matt’s dad, Bruce Weinberg, is one of the owners of the new Twin Rinks Ice Pavilion in Buffalo Grove, which opened June 1. And Dad thinks his new toy is pretty cool too.
“Right after we opened, I brought my sons out to the rink one night,” the elder Weinberg said. “I sat up in the stands and I watched them out on the ice. It was immediate gratification for all the hard work we put into this place. And now that I’m breaking in some new skates, I try to skate every day too.”
Twin Rinks’ two other owners are Garry Benjoya, 33, of Buffalo Grove and Gary Pivar, 40, of Long Grove. Along with their investment in Twin Rinks, Weinberg, Benjoya and Pivar all work in Buffalo Grove as entrepreneurs in the computer industry.
Both rinks are National Hockey League-sized, or 200 by 85 feet. One rink has seating for 1,000 people and the other for 300.
“Why an ice rink? I’ve always loved hockey, and the town needed something like this. Those are two good reasons,” Benjoya said. “And while it’s obviously a lot of work, it’s also our own little playground. It’s cool to own an ice rink. I’ll come out on mornings, weekends and skate around. It’s fun. And we can drive the Olympia ice-resurfacing machine any time we want to.”
Although many Chicago-area skating rinks are owned and operated by park districts, Twin Rinks joins the list of privately owned rinks, which includes facilities in Barrington, Crystal Lake, Woodridge and Lincolnwood.
Michael Rylko, director of parks and recreation for Buffalo Grove, said residents have wanted an ice rink for years but hadn’t wanted to commit the tax dollars. He predicted that Twin Rinks will do well. “It’s a nice asset for Buffalo Grove, and they’re serving the community very well,” he said. “People are excited about it.”
William Balling, Buffalo Grove village manager for the last 20 years, also is pleased with the new rinks. “Twin Rinks represents a major private recreational investment for our community,” he said. “Many residents in the Buffalo Grove area enjoy ice hockey and figure skating, and now they don’t have to drive to other towns to do it. I’ve skated there a few times myself. Twin Rinks is also linking up with the park district on learn-to-skate and other programs. I commend Garry and Bruce for pulling this off. It’s a big accomplishment. They had a vision and they pursued it. And now that it’s open, they’re hiring good people to help them run it.”
Helping operate Twin Rinks on a day-to-day basis are rink general manager Jerry Krewer of Skokie, hockey director Pat Kelleher of Chicago and figure skating director Tom Hickey of Niles, who most recently was the skating supervisor at the Niles Park District’s Iceland rink.
Although the owners would not say how much their investment was, Mike Sebastian, president of Center Ice Consultants in Grand Rapids, Mich., an ice rink consulting firm, said a double-rink center would cost at least $4 million to $4.5 million.
Weinberg and Benjoya first had their vision about four years ago. Benjoya was coaching a bantam hockey team in Skokie, and he was tiring of the 30-minute one-way drive three times a week.
Weinberg, who started playing hockey at age 13, picks up the story. “We were driving around one day, just talking, and one of us, I don’t remember who, said, `We could use an ice rink in this town,’ ” he said. “So we went to work to make it happen. The first thing we did was meet with local government and park district officials. They were encouraging, so we created a business plan, talked with several banks, met with real estate people. Then we went back to the village for the planning, zoning and building permits. That process took two years, and we took one year to build. And here we are.”
Benjoya said it helped to open Twin Rinks’ doors in the summer, not exactly the heart of the hockey season. “That enabled us to work the kinks out, continue our marketing efforts, let the public know we have a premier facility here before things heated up in the fall,” he said.
Weinberg said there is no doubt there’s a need for the rinks. “The closest facilities are in towns like Rolling Meadows, Highland Park and Barrington,” he said. “There was a lot of pentup demand in the Buffalo Grove area that wasn’t being met. The time was right.”
Now the challenge for Benjoya and Weinberg is to keep both sheets of ice busy as much as possible. That means marketing, which they’re doing in different ways. For instance, along with working with the Buffalo Grove Park District, they donated ice time to Kildeer School District 96 and Aptakisic-Tripp School District 102 for fundraisers. Twin Rinks has skating parties for birthdays and other events and a party room for corporate functions.
And the International Hockey League’s Chicago Wolves will hold an exhibition game against the Michigan K-Wings at Twin Rinks at 4 p.m. next Sunday. Gene Ubriaco, the Wolves’ assistant general manager, is happy to help support the new rink by staging an exhibition there.
“Buffalo Grove is with the times,” Ubriaco said. “Hockey and figure skating are booming. Both are great sports for youngsters. And Twin Rinks has very innovative people running the rink. From our own perspective, facilities like Twin Rinks help the Wolves. The more people exposed to our sport, the better it is for us. They’re a great marketing partner for the Wolves.”
The split between figure skating and ice hockey programs at Twin Rinks is about 50-50, Weinberg said, along with about 18 hours set aside for public skating per week,
As for hockey, Twin Rinks sponsors the Sharks youth house league at the pre-mite, mite, squirt, pee wee and bantam levels, which cover ages 5 through 14. There also are adult non-check recreational leagues at three skill levels, along with “rat times” (hockey pickup games) and hockey schools and clinics. According to USA Hockey, the sport’s governing body, the number of registered hockey players in Illinois increased by 9 percent in 1996 from 1995, to 23,433 players.
“Because of the available ice, we’re seeing a lot of 5-, 6- and 7-year-olds taking up figure skating and hockey,” Weinberg said. “If we run good programs, we can keep them for 10 years or more.”
Also using Twin Rinks for hockey practices and games are the Northwestern University club team, Stevenson and Deerfield High Schools, the Team Illinois elite youth league and the Barrington Redwings and Glenview Stars travel programs. The Glenview Stars were able to add four new teams thanks to the Buffalo Grove rinks.
“We’ve had to limit the number of teams because of limited ice availability,” said Myles Gottainer of Wilmette, coaching committee chairman for the Glenview Stars. “Now the available ice in the Chicago area is catching up to the growing interest in hockey. And Twin Rinks is a beautiful facility with aggressive management, working hard to get solid programs going.”
Those excited about the rinks include the Divita family of Buffalo Grove. Johnny Divita, 13, is playing in the bantam division of the Twin Rinks hockey league. “We’ve been playing in Glenview and Northbrook. Now Johnny can play right here in Buffalo Grove,” said his mother, Vicki. “First of all, we don’t have to travel anymore. And he can play with kids he knows from Buffalo Grove. This rink means everything to us. We’re thrilled to have it here.”
Part of Weinberg and Benjoya’s preparation for building Twin Rinks involved two whirlwind tours of ice rinks in Canada, the birthplace of modern ice hockey.
The first trip was to learn about pro shops and the different equipment manufacturers such as Bauer, Koho and CCM. “We soaked up every detail we could,” Benjoya said. “Which is the best skate-sharpening machine? What’s the best way to display equipment for sale in the pro shop? How do you operate a skate rental operation? Of course, going to Canada is the best place to go for a crash course. There’s a rink in every town.”
The second Canada trip was to learn about ice rinks, including ice resurfacing machines and boards. They saw more than 20 sheets of ice in two days. “We got lots of great ideas. It was a very beneficial 48 hours,” Weinberg said. “We never knew what went into hockey boards (the walls surrounding the ice). What we found was that there are 12 different manufacturers of hockey boards. We went with boards from Becker Arena Products, which is also doing the boards for the hockey rink at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Japan. As for our icemaker, we went with Cimco, which also does the United Center ice.”
Now that Twin Rinks is officially up and running, Weinberg and Benjoya have to fight the impulse to neglect their duties at their other jobs. “I have to drive right by the rink to get to the office, and sometimes I’ll stop by in the morning,” Weinberg said. “Then I’ll come in the afternoon and stay until dinnertime and sometimes a little later than that. And I’m usually here on weekends, too. It’s a fun place to hang out. We built it for the investment, but we built it for the fun too.”
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Twin Rinks is at 1500 Abbott Court on the east side of Weiland Road in Buffalo Grove. For more information, call Twin Rinks at 847-821-7465 (RINK), or check its Internet site at www.twinrinks.com.
