Paris Heyd returned to New Zealand in October and has taken over as manager of the Dunedin Ice Stadium. He previously spent 10 months working in London. An experienced ice hockey player, Heyd (26) has played in the national league since 2006 and has played overseas both at club and international level. That experience of being to stadiums around the world had proven valuable and he had big visions for his new role, he said.
"I’d love to see the ice sports grow — I think we’ve got a great climate for it," he said.
"I think we’ve got potential here. You see the people that are involved and absolutely love it."
Heyd completed a business management degree at the University of Otago. He complemented that with a postgraduate diploma in sports business and worked as a duty manager at the ice stadium while he studied. It was then that he thought managing a rink would be great. When the chance to do so at home arose, it was too good an opportunity to turn down.
"Our job now is just to push the rink and spread the knowledge that we do have an ice rink and it is one of the best, probably, that I’ve played at in terms of ice quality.
"So it’s just a bit of a business case now. We’ve got to market it, we’ve got to get programmes up and running. Then once people start skating, especially if you get the kids, they learn how to skate pretty quickly, I think this could be a really good hotbed, not just for hockey, but figure skating and speed skating."
He was enjoying having the division three under-20 ice hockey world champs at the stadium this week. While the stadium was not involved with running the tournament, it was a great way of exposing ice sports to the region. He hoped to bring more international events to the city to show what the stadium had to offer.
"Awareness starts in our own community. Half the people in South Dunedin probably don’t know there’s an ice rink here.
"So that’s your first issue. You can worry about building awareness overseas once you get New Zealand."
On the playing side, he hoped to turn out for the Dunedin Thunder this year and would attend the world championships with New Zealand. He loved the local community and having spent a lot of his childhood in Dunedin, he was making the most of being back.
"I’ve moved around a bit overseas and Central [Otago] and Christchurch, but I always come back here.
"It’s great [being back]. London is a busy place. It’s a nice pace of life here — Dunedin’s got everything you need. You don’t really realise until you leave and then you come back and it’s a pretty cool place."
