Eastview community angered after snowblower stolen from outdoor rink

A Saskatoon man has a lot of snow to clear from his local outdoor rink after the snowstorm that hit the city over weekend, and that job is going to be a lot harder without the help of his snowblower.

Despite multiple locks and bolts on the community shed, Jon Holaday, the rink co-ordinator for the Eastview Community Association, said somebody was still able to cut the locks, plow a path and walk out with the snowblower used to clear the rink.

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“We showed up after the snowstorm to take a look at the rink and see how much snow we have to remove, and found that the door was propped open,” said Holaday.

According to Holaday, this isn’t the first time the shed has been burgled. In fact, he estimated that thieves have broken into the shed twice a year for the past four years.

“It’s horribly frustrating,” he said.

“We’ve spent hundreds of hours keeping the rink going, and now we have no means of removing the snow around here. Now we’ve got to try and find (a snowblower) when there is no snowblowers even available in store anymore.”

He said the association is now hunting for a replacement for the stolen 33″ Yardman snowblower.

“We’ll have to try and find a used one and do some repairs to make sure it’s operating, and try and start over again to see what we can do to get the ice going,” Holaday said.

For now, Holaday is getting some help from the community. He said that a number of people throughout Eastview have offered to let him use their snowblowers so he can get the rink up and running for everyone to skate on.

Although it’s a good temporary fix, Holaday said the association still needs to buy a permanent replacement, despite being short on funding.

“It’s all based off of our donations and our operating grant. I put a motion in last night to hopefully get approved to pay our deductible, but our old snowblower’s value is nowhere close to what new ones to replace it are,” he said. “And the insurance company won’t pay the difference anymore, so we’ll have to come up with some additional funds”

Holaday is hoping that a direct appeal could also work, so he’s asking whoever took the snowblower to please return it.