Longtime Prince George resident Jon LaFontaine has taken over the lease of the iconic Roll-A-Dome.
He hopes to use his recreational sports experience to his advantage. “I played ball hockey, indoor soccer, I played outdoor soccer and a lot of ice hockey, flag football play, a lot of tennis. I have created a lot of relationships and I hope to be able to kind of channel into that and be able to pull more user groups to the Roll-A-Dome.”
LaFontaine would like to provide the youth of Prince George with more athletic opportunities at the historically quaint building. “Well, we’re hoping to get the indoor soccer league started up again and I really want to target some of the youth and I was thinking ball hockey league’s, indoor soccer leagues and just provide an opportunity for the kids to come play and just let them come out and have fun.”
Another one of his goals is to restore the Roll-A-Dome to its former glory. “It’s affordable and it definitely needs some TLC and attention to different areas but there are people within the community that want to reach out and help make it look desirable and make it the place that it once was.”
The facility has become a staple in the local community and gives people the opportunity to reminisce about days gone by.
“I think the Roll-A-Dome with people who have grown up here and used the facility in the past they grew up as a kid and roller skating was quite popular and your schools would get a chance to go there once in awhile and you do birthday parties and go there on the weekend so people have that history with the Roll-A-Dome already,” LaFontaine says.
“It’s really become a home for a lot of the different sporting communities – they do skateboarding there, the brain injured group plays ball hockey and leagues play there. It’s not just a roller skating facility, it is a multi-use sporting complex.”
Longtime manager Al Work will still be around the facility to help out but won’t be working the volume of hours like he did in the past.
The previous owners of the Roll-A-Dome were looking to sell since the property was worth an estimated $1.5 million dollars.
A Facebook group called Save the Dome then formed and attempted to raise that money to avoid the building getting sold and destroyed.
With LaFontaine now taking over the lease, the Roll-A-Dome has a new lease on life.
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