The holder wins. Two and a half years after the fire, a new club building has been built at the natural ice rink of Hollandscheveld. And at IJsvereniging VIOS they are very proud. A little help from the municipality, crowdfunding and many Dutch hands have ensured that there is now a beautiful accommodation. Now natural ice cream.
At the Open Day today, a proud VIOS chairman Albert Lok received many compliments and congratulations from his fellow villagers, Hoogeveen alderman Jan Zwiers and skating club De IJshazen from Zuidwolde. It has become a spacious building with a special floor that can withstand skating. And because new construction had to be done from the ground up, VIOS immediately switched from natural gas.
It is the ice rink where Piet Kleine used to do his laps. He must have bought cake and zopie at the old wooden club building in the past. When winters were still winters. In the year 2020 when the club turned 65 years old, the home base went up in flames. The arsonist was never caught. And that had an impact on Lok. “Tears come to my eyes again. You lose everything at such a moment. There were many photos in the building with beautiful memories. Of course you will never get them back.”
But the first memory hangs again on the still virgin white wall in the new, larger club building. A packed ice rink photo, taken during the last winter that it was really possible to skate a few years ago. “I’m sure there will be nice memories again,” says the positive chairman.