Duluth families face uncertainty as DECC ice access remains unresolved

The Duluth Figure Skating Club packed the DECC for its 46th annual Northland Figure Skating Competition in late January, but families and organizers are already facing a harder question: will there be reliable ice at the arena next winter?

For the winter of 2026-27, the DECC still has no guaranteed ice, and that uncertainty is rippling through youth hockey, figure skating and the downtown economy around the Lake Superior waterfront. Spirit of Duluth, which has grown since 1977 into a 54-team tournament with 45 teams from outside the Twin Ports, is among the events planning around that unknown. The Icebreakers Invitational is even larger, drawing 70 girls teams. If ice is not available when registration and travel plans lock in, teams may take their tournaments elsewhere.

That would hit more than the scoreboard. Parents would be forced to adjust child care schedules, skaters would lose practice time, and coaches would have to juggle team budgets and travel costs. Weekend hotel rooms, restaurant tabs and other spending tied to tournament traffic would also be at risk in Downtown Duluth, where event weekends often fill rooms and bring steady foot traffic.

The DECC says the concern reaches well beyond hockey. Its ice sheets are used by the Duluth Figure Skating Club, hockey practices, public events and private rentals, including birthday parties. The facility says it has two sheets of ice, one in DECC Arena and one in AMSOIL Arena, with rentals listed at $260 an hour for DECC Arena and $280 an hour for AMSOIL Arena. The original Duluth Arena Auditorium opened in 1966, and the arena portion includes a 190-by-85-foot rink and 5,333 seats. Over the decades, it has hosted NCAA Division I men’s hockey championships in 1968 and 1981 and women’s Frozen Fours in 2003, 2008 and 2012.

Duluth and the DECC tried to steady the system in September 2023, announcing up to $200,000 for a temporary ice chiller to keep the DECC Arena sheet operating. The city said then that roughly 95 youth hockey games had been held at the DECC the previous season, with about 70 out-of-town teams, or 37% of participants, coming in for those games. DAHA executive director Bob Nygaard warned that the DECC relationship meant “thousands of hockey players and figure skaters, coaches, volunteers and family members” and said losing it would mean a drastic reduction in tournament teams and tourism revenue.

That warning now feels less theoretical. The Northland Figure Skating Competition returned to the DECC from January 29 to February 1, 2026, drawing skaters from across the region and underscoring how deeply the arena is woven into Duluth’s youth sports economy. Without a clear ice plan for 2026-27, the city risks losing not just rink time, but a piece of the tournament calendar that helps keep families coming back to Duluth.