{"id":22984,"date":"2026-01-22T16:13:43","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T23:13:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=22984"},"modified":"2026-01-22T16:13:43","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T23:13:43","slug":"celebrating-season-11-at-haileys-barn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/22\/celebrating-season-11-at-haileys-barn\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating Season 11 at Hailey\u2019s \u2018Barn\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Mike McKenna<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"It takes more than just hope to make a big dream come true. It takes persistence, passion and a little help along the way.
\nFor 15 years, an impassioned group of locals shared the dream of bringing an indoor ice rink to Hailey. Thanks to their efforts and lots of support from across the community, in 2015 the Campion Ice House opened at Wertheimer Park. The rink has been nothing shy of a booming success ever since.
\n\u201cIt has been amazing and a great investment in our community,\u201d said Sarah Benson, executive director for Hailey Ice, the nonprofit organization that spearheaded the dream and now manages the facility.
\n2026 marks the 11th season at Hailey\u2019s \u201cbarn,\u201d as ice rinks are sometimes called. Over a decade after opening, the rink has never been busier, with loads of both locals and visitors having fun and carving turns there all year long.
\nWhen Hailey Ice first welcomed skaters, the rink was only open for six months a year. Eventually, the seasons started lengthening and ice was open for a spell each summer. But last year, for the first time ever, there was enough interest and support to keep Hailey Ice open every month.
\n\u201cIt was fun to be an ice rink all year,\u201d Sarah said. \u201cThat was new for us and super fun. The plant held up well, the ice was great and we had enough interest to keep it going.\u201d
\nWell over 70,000 folks with cellphones spend time at Hailey Ice each year, according to data from places like Placer AI. The positive impacts the rink brings are as small as the smiles on the five- and six-year-old \u201cMini Mites\u201d hockey players and as large as filling up local hotel and restaurant coffers (and Local Option Tax receipts) most weekends in the winter when hockey tournaments bring in hundreds of folks from far and wide to the Wood River Valley.
\nOne of the big advantages Hailey Ice has is that it\u2019s not weather dependent. Even if it\u2019s not cold enough to create local outdoor rinks or the snow hasn\u2019t shown up on the slopes, the ice in Hailey\u2019s barn is always in great shape.
\nAs much as Hailey Ice does a great job of supporting our tourist-based economy, it\u2019s really a happy place for locals.
\nThis season, roughly 300 local boys and girls will play for the Sun Valley Youth Hockey program. Well over 20 teams also play in the local B Leagues, while the big SUNS pack the rink when they host high-level senior hockey teams from across the country on nearly a dozen weekends each winter.
\nCurling has also caught on locally, with over 30 teams competing in two different curling seasons each winter. Figure skaters sessions and public skating are also popular, while Hailey Ice also hosts special skating sessions for students from the Wood River Valley down to Jerome and Gooding and the Magic Valley.
\nBut all this success means they\u2019ve run out of room. That\u2019s why Hailey Ice is in the process of getting approval for a 6,500-square-foot addition. It will include adding things like a female athlete locker room, a couple more much-needed locker rooms and more space to store the Zambonis.<\/p>\n

Find out more about at HaileyIce.org.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Mike McKenna It takes more than just hope to make a big dream come true. It takes persistence, passion and a little help along the way. For 15 years, an impassioned group of locals shared the dream of bringing an indoor ice rink to Hailey. Thanks to their efforts and lots of support from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":479,"featured_media":10323,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[70,38],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-22984","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chamber-corner","8":"category-sponsored"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/479"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22984"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22986,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22984\/revisions\/22986"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}