Hit the ice this winter with Hockey Community

If you love to play hockey but have found it difficult to find a rink for a game of pick-up, Hockey Community might be right up your alley.

Currently in beta, the website is a database of 2,613 hockey rinks across Canada as well as a community organizer that can link players to teams and teams to rinks. Just find your local hockey rink and see who wants to get a game going.

That means no more hunting through your local rink’s website (if they even have a website) looking through outdated schedules to find what might be a game where three or four players show up. With Hockey Community you can see when and where the game is going down, and how many people will show up — and if there aren’t any games happening, you can receive notifications via Facebook or email when they do happen.

Hockey Community was the brainchild of three Vancouver roommates. One of them, Alex, came to Vancouver from France for an internship, and when he wanted to start playing hockey in Canada, he was frustrated by the poor listing systems many rinks had for open ice and games. So, with his roommates Daniel and Martine, they put together Hockey Community to help anyone else who’s had a similar problem.

For these three, the community aspect of Hockey Community is the most important. Along with a suggestion tool for improvements to the site, visitors can add new rinks to the database, add hockey shops, or leave tips about services and times at rinks. They even have a “Hockey Facts” section where user-submitted hockey facts are re-tweeted on the Hockey Community Twitter feed.

Currently, Hockey Community exists as a website and a Facebook app, but an iPhone app is also in the works. You can check it out here.