Flexible Arena Of Hauppauge Opens Ice Rink To Athletes Displaced By Fire At Local Facility

HAUPPAUGE, NY — After a fire at Superior Ice Rink in Kings Park caused its temporary closure, Flexible Arena in Hauppauge is opening its doors to young athletes and teams who need a place to train and compete in the interim.

The displaced players are set to take the ice at Flexible Arena next week, completely free of charge, said Zach Belous, manager of the ice rink. Belous also works in business development for Flexible IT, the business that completely funds the rink, maintenance, and staffing.

Superior Ice Rink will be closed for at least two weeks after a fire occurred on Feb. 9 because a utility pole was struck by a snow plow during the storm, News 12 Long Island reported. The collision sparked flames that affected both the basement and first floor of the Kings Park rink, News 12 reported.

Belous said Superior Ice Rink skaters have missed practice, game time and development opportunities because of the fire, and so he opened Flexible Arena to those athletes.

"Once [the fire] happened, everyone was scrambling," Belous told Patch. "It happened to be the end of the season. Teams have playoffs, tournaments, state championships that they're getting prepared for. They had nowhere to go or practice. Nothing."

A couple of coaches who use Superior Ice Rink had already heard about Flexible Arena through word of mouth and reached out on their own accord, Belous said. Flexible Arena has also communicated with the director of hockey at Superior Ice Rink, Belous said.

Flexible Arena plans to support Superior Ice Rink and its skaters "for the near future," Belous said.

Flexible Arena has always been open to all, free of charge, as long as they sign up with an organization, whether it's a youth sports organization, school team or a police or fire department. Belous said the main goal of the company's rink is to give back to the community.

Interested parties can sign up on the Flexible Arena website or through the Instagram page.

The Hauppauge arena is still operating as usual for its skater base, though it is trying to open up time slots for skaters displaced from the Kings Park rink, Belous said.

"It was a spur of the moment situation," he said. "Everybody I had to reach out to was very understanding, very nice. They gave up their slots and said, 'Whatever we have to do to help these kids out and get them time before they have to go away for playoffs or tryouts or whatever they're doing at the end of the season.'"

Belous does not know how long Superior Ice Rink could remain closed, but its skaters have a home at Flexible Arena until Superior Ice Rink can reopen, Belous said.

"It's nice, because they felt like they had nowhere to go," he said. "We were the only place that was able to open up for them. The other rinks, they have their business going on on a day-to-day basis. They couldn't really switch up their schedule for these guys. Our rink, our community, we were able to get a message out to everyone. Everyone was very, very understanding and compassionate toward the situation. We were able to rearrange all of the ice slots and get these kids in who really needed it. It's been another nice thing, turning a bad situation into something nice. As long as they need our help, we're going to help them. We hope it opens as soon as possible."

Superior Ice Rink did not respond to Patch's request for comment.