City of Ottawa staff are recommending significant changes to the way ice time at city arenas is distributed, which girls hockey associations are praising after years of claims the current system is unfair.

In 2002, the freshly-amalgamated City of Ottawa came up with a "Facility Allocation Policy" for recreation and cultural centres including arenas, fields, ball diamonds, pools and community centres that was made up of the policies of pre-amalgamated communities.

That 2002 policy leaned heavily on what organizations have historically had been given, while the proposed new policy recommended by city staff would give out hours of use at arenas, ball diamonds and sports fields primarily based on need — how many members they have and "accepted playing time standards."

"Since amalgamation, the number of facilities in the city has steadily increased and shifts in participant trends have occurred in certain sports… This legacy practice has made it difficult to align the allocation of hours in each season based on current needs which has resulted in inequities," a report to the city's Community and Protective Services committee said.

Some girls hockey associations say they're treated unfairly by the current policy since they are newer than boys hockey associations, meaning they aren't given priority and have to spend money to book ice at private arenas such as the Sensplexes or universities to make up for it.

"There's actually a tax on girls hockey because they have to access more and more private ice at much higher costs because they couldn't have their fair share of the city ice time," said Gloucester-Southgate councillor Diane Deans, the chair of the Community and Protective Services committee.

Costs pile up

Nalin Bhargava, president of the Ottawa Girls Hockey Association, said if there's an ice crunch, boys and girls associations should have to buy equal amounts of private ice time.

He said he analyzed how many hours of city-run ice "inner-city" hockey associations inside the Greenbelt are given and found they have 57 per cent of the city ice they're supposed to get under the city's formula, while the boys association with the same geographical boundary gets 84 per cent.

"There's the problem, it's the percentage of your entitlement [to city ice under the formula]. If we're at 57 per cent, we'd be happy if everyone else was at 57 per cent, but that's not the case," he said.

Bhargava said they have to buy 300 hours of private ice at a rate of $320 to $330 an hour to make up the difference, compared to $162 an hour for city ice.

That means an extra $50,000 in costs a year and an extra $200 in fees per year for his families compared to boys associations, he said.

"What [the proposed changes do] is it changes the focus from fighting with the neighbouring association to get ice to trying to promote and enlist as many kids as you can into your association — promote the game, get kids playing hockey, then you'll get more ice… that's what we're here for," he said.

He said he was considering a human rights complaint about the situation because it was gender discrimination, but the city let him know they were working to change it so he put that idea on hold.

Boys would get less time

The changes are on the agenda of Thursday morning's Community and Protective Services committee meeting.

Rideau-Vanier councillor Mathieu Fleury says the changes would make ice time more equal. (CBC)

Rideau-Vanier councillor Mathieu Fleury, a member of the committee, said he can see there being backlash from boys hockey associations who would stand to lose their historic ice time advantage.

"That league will come tomorrow and say, 'We're losing time.' They are losing time because what we're basing it on is the actual users: how many teams do you have, how many players do you have on the ice?" he said.

"That will unlock the ice time (and the field time)."

Fleury said this could lead more boys hockey associations to pay for the more expensive private ice, but the city has to be equal.

He also said there are more sports such as ringette, sledge hockey and speed skating that are also newer and would benefit from the change as well.