BY JENN McDOWELL

A Manchester hockey coach has received a lot of support to build a synthetic ice hockey rink  and put a youth hockey program in Auburn on town land that is currently not being used.

Dan Legro, a 27-year-old  Midgets  coach for the Manchester Flames organization, met with Auburn selectmen to introduce his desire to build the rink on a lot by the baseball fields near Wilsons
Crossing Road.

“I am specifically looking for an area pretty much identical to this,” said Legro, who has been considering other sites in surrounding towns.

Craig Joyce, owner of Joyce Sales group on Wilsons Crossing Road in Auburn, and Legro’s childhood football coach, is selling his house, which is adjacent to the empty lot and is building another one elsewhere in town.

Legro is considering buying the house so he can move in and be near the rink, should it go through with the town.

A Bentley graduate and former financial planner, Legro authored the goal-setting book “The Go Getter,” the story of a young man named Cash who finds a mentor in an older man who is completely satisfied with how his life turned out.

The story is modeled, said Legro, on his relationship with Joyce.

“He’s an inspiration,” Legro said.

Joyce put the bug in Legro’s ear, urging him to develop a community youth hockey program for Auburn, using the synthetic rink as a jumping-off point.

Legro said his main purpose is to establish goals in youth, and he believes that hockey is an excellent tool for that.

Auburn Town Administrator Bill Herman said selectmen favor the idea of the hockey rink, and hope to see more clarified plans from Legro in the coming weeks.

“He clearly has a very good vision and concept. I would hope that we’d be able to meet with him again in a few weeks, and maybe he’s fleshed out a little more,” Herman said.

He added that Legro has identified a reasonable and effective use for the town owned property given it’s proximity to the ball fields, and that the town had no other plans in the works for the property’s use.

Currently, the town’s fire department fills and maintains a skating rink at the town’s center during the winter months, but there are no organized community activities offered there that Legro’s rink would provide.

“I think anything that is youth sport orientated is something that is of interested in any community,” Herman said.

Joyce agreed wholeheartedly.

“I think it’s a perfect fit. One thing you know about Dan, when you meet him right away, is he’s very passionate about this stuff. This is going to be a home run for everybody,” Joyce said.

He added that the hockey rink will likely bring people into the town, so questions regarding the impact to the town, including the police department and traffic, will eventually need to be answered.

“Every single person I’ve talked to about this thinks it’s a good idea and that it will work,” Legro said.

Legro said ice rinks have become much too expensive, and that a synthetic rink would be much more easily and cost effectively maintained.

“It’s really a plastic ice, in a sense. It’s attraction is that you can use it 12 months of the year,” Legro said, adding that costs associated with normal hockey rinks including water, refrigeration, and conditioning expenses would not factor into the synthetic rink he hopes to build.

“If I can get it up and charge half the price of what they pay for real ice, they can get twice as much out of it,” Legro said of community organizations, including hockey leagues and figure skating clubs.

Synthetic ice also trains hockey students harder, having slightly less glide to it than regular ice.

Typically, he said, hockey coaches use small sections of it for individual training, namely for goalies.

Legro’s idea is to create an entire rink out of it, something rarely entertained, of about 50 by 75 feet.

“It’s being used all over the place. They don’t use it, I think, to the ultimate benefit of what it can be used for,” Legro said.

Legro already met with Auburn’s Parks and Recreation board, and has yet to meet with the planning and zoning boards to answer questions about his idea.

Herman said the ultimate decision on whether to allow Legro to build the rink would be in the voter’s hands.

“Any one of those decisions really aren’t for the selectmen to make, it would require a town meeting vote,” he said.