How Walker’s Ice And Fitness Center Became A True Community Hub

A goalie with a record that still hasn’t been touched walks into a community rink and stays for 15 years. That’s the path of Mike Fountain, former professional NHL hockey player and longtime ice manager at the Walker Ice and Fitness Center, and it says a lot about what makes Walker, Michigan feel like home.

We talk about Mike’s journey from North York, Ontario to the Grand Rapids Griffins, to hockey stops around the world, and then back to West Michigan when it was time to settle down. From there, the conversation turns into a behind-the-scenes look at what many people miss when they drive by: a city-owned ice rink that functions like a full community center, welcoming everyone from three-year-olds in learn to skate to seniors still skating in their 80s.

We also get practical about access and growth. Mike explains how municipal ownership helps keep beginner programs like learn to skate and cross-ice hockey more affordable, why the facility draws families from across the region, and how girls hockey and figure skating are booming alongside traditional youth and men’s leagues. You’ll hear what’s available right now, including open skate, stick and puck, drop-in hockey, freestyle skating, rental skates included, and a pro shop to help you get started without overthinking it.

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If you have comments about this podcast, or ideas for future episodes, please email us at PODCAST@WALKER.CITY

Transcript

Welcome To Maid In Walker

Nicole DiDonato 0:03

Welcome to the Maid and Walker Podcast. It's the podcast that connects you to the people, the stories, and the ideas shaping our community. From local innovators to everyday change makers, we're diving deep into what makes Walker a great place to live, work, and grow. Now here's your host, Steve Kelso.

Meet Mike Fountain And His Record

Steve Kelso 0:24

Hello and welcome. Thank you for joining me for another episode of the Maiden Walker Podcast. Today we've got a treat. We've got Mike Fountain today. He is a former professional NHL hockey player. Your resume includes the NHL, the AHL, including some time as a Grand Rapids Griffin. And you hold a record in the Russian hockey league that still stands. Tell me about that.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

Well, I had the uh old-time record for most shutouts in a single season. I had 14 shutouts in 43 games. I set that back in 2001, and somehow it's still records are made to be broken, right? But somehow I still own it. But that one's still standing. Still stands.

Steve Kelso 1:01

Mike, thanks for joining me today.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Thank you, Steve. Great

From Pro Hockey To Walker

SPEAKER_01 1:03

to be here.

Steve Kelso 1:03

I am curious, and maybe you can help me out with this. How does a boy from North York, Ontario, find his way to the Walker Ison Fitness Center?

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Well, the path was through the Grand Rapids Griffins, as you mentioned. I played here from 1999 to 2001. Uh, loved the area. And then my uh career, my 17-year professional career, took me around the world. And it was when it was time to settle down, Grand Rapids was the place. And I took a year off after retiring from hockey and then stumbled into uh the opportunity at the walker with the city of Walker. And 15 years later, I'm still there.

Steve Kelso 1:37

There was something about that Walker Ice and Fitness Center, obviously, that drew you to it. Tell tell me tell me about the Walker Ice and Fitness Center, because I don't think a lot of people even know. It's very close to my house, and a lot of my neighbors don't know anything about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

That's a valid point. When I was playing professional hockey, I would skate there in the offseason with a lot of local guys, like you know, the Mike Canoobles and some local guys that played in the NHL in college. And so I knew about the facility. I didn't really know about it too much until the job opportunity happened, walked in, toured it. And the big thing that sets, I think, the Walker Ice and Fitness Center apart from some of the other ones are the people. Obviously, the City of Walker has some great residents and people, but um, with the program we offer between the ice, the fitness, the rec departments, it's really like a community center. Everyone loves coming there. We bring a lot of traffic through the building, tens of thousands of people a week. So I think that's really what happens. Sometimes certain hockey rings can be kind of dark or or or or single use. This is truly a community

Why The Rink Feels Like Home

SPEAKER_01 2:38

center.

Steve Kelso 2:38

There's there's an importance to community drawing that many people through your door, isn't there? You've seen that first hand. Tell me about it.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Absolutely. And and I think it starts with um, you know, the communication and what we offer, right? I have kids learning how to skate. We have learn to skate, learn to play hockey players that are three years old. I also have a Tuesday night group that is a 65 and over group, and the guy, some guys are 80 years old still skating. So hockey specifically is a really cool sport. It's not like football or basketball. You can't really play it your whole life as your body breaks down, but hockey you can. Um, and then from you know the fitness side, we're so lucky to have a great facility there fitness-wise. So a lot of people come in. The older clientele might just go for walks, right? And again, we do so many things with um uh like youth soccer and and senior bowling. It's just the gamut of of I think all the ages. And when you come in, you have a sense of community and a sense of walker.

Steve Kelso 3:36

There's uh there's very few city-owned ice rinks out there. That's a real advantage for a municipality. Talk talk to me about that a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

I I would say I agree 100%. Two things on our side, running the facility, the cool thing is if we need some projects, it's a 30-year-old building almost. It was uh built in 1998. So there's gonna be some projects, you know, you might need a new roof, you have to repair some stuff. The city has that backing. Excellent, right? And then on our end, with all these people that are coming through, and I don't exaggerate when I say tens of thousands of people coming through every week. Now we're using the the restaurants, the gas stations, the hotels. Right.

Affordable Programs For Every Age

SPEAKER_01 4:16

And people come and what is Walker, Michigan? And they come there and they leave going, beautiful facility, nice people. Um, and it kind of puts us on the map a little bit. Walker offers a lot. Our new libraries coming, our parks. Um, but I feel like that that that building, the Walker Ice and Fitness Center, is really a kind of a shining star.

Steve Kelso 4:36

I would think that because you're municipally owned, that you can offer value to people whose kids want to learn how to play hockey. It's not it's not cheap to play team sports.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

Yeah.

Steve Kelso 4:47

Um, but I would imagine that the city can represent a real value for people who want will want that for their kids.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

Very good point, actually. Hockey's an expensive sport. I also have friends with daughters in dance, and apparently hockey's not that as expensive when you compare to other sports. Yep. Uh, you know, everything's getting very specialized nowadays, right? Baseball, private coat hitting, private this, private that. So by running the rink, by the city owning the rink, we can offer learn to skate and we call it a cross-ice program, which is kind of the level you go from learn to play hockey before you join like full ice referees, we're getting real serious. And we can offer those um opportunities at a discounted rate. Ice is ice is not cheap per hour. It's expensive to run a hockey rink, but because we own the building, the city owns the building, we can those beginner and get people hooked and interested in the sport, we can offer that at a discounted rate.

Steve Kelso 5:40

I'd imagine it also offers a real value to families who have children who are looking for the sport they want to get into. And maybe hockey's not for them, but they can do this at a price point then that's a little less expensive and maybe go find something else that they like. But those things are available in Walker as well.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Absolutely. You know, we've got an incredible um rec department that uh we know with the soccer programs and and I I always say, uh, and I think I I do some um speaking with USA hockey and presentations, and um, we want multi-sport athletes, right? Hockey's great, it's a great sport. I don't want you to be 100% just hockey. So sports like soccer, tennis, pickleball's the new craze, right? Right. All these sports really translate well to make a well-rounded athlete. Um, and when you can come to the Walker Rice and Fitness Center and get a little bit of everything, obviously we have some tennis courts, we have pickleball, we have baseball, we have uh soccer fields on campus and great walking trails. Like you can literally do anything and find your passion.

Steve Kelso 6:43

There forms around that when you're talking about you know, kids coming in as young as three, learning to skate, senior citizens, and and honestly approaching elderly people skating out there and exercising. You start building a real community there. You know, my my dad used to skate in here, my grandpa used to skate in here. You've probably seen that firsthand.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

Oh, I can't believe you just said that because you're dating me. But yes, I started 15 years ago, and when I started, I was helping out the Kanoa Hills uh varsity hockey team that would skate out of our rink. And now that's 15 years ago. So those 18-year-old kids are in their 30s. Now their kids are doing learn to skate, learn to play hockey. They reach out to Coach Mike and they want to help out. They want to give back. And I can't stress this enough that the turnover and and the people coming back and the sense of community. It's it's crazy to me to see some of these kids bring their kids. And I know hopefully I'm here for another 10, 15 years, and in that time we're gonna leave it even better than when we got it.

Steve Kelso 7:43

And you may meet the third generation. Possibly, possibly you are you are meeting the second generation, like like a teacher says they do that, right?

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Absolutely. It's kind of cool when you go to them, the Meyer or whatever store in Walker, and people come up to you and say, Coach Mike, and um, you look over, and and you know, there's we have so many kids in our program, but you recognize somebody, give a little fist bump, and uh, you know, 10, 15 years from now, they might be the the coach. I love it. Yeah, that's great. I love it. And hockey is close knit anyway, isn't it? Correct. It's a very small community. We always joke and say it's it's a very small hockey community. So if you're playing at another association or you're playing at a rink, like there's some other associations in West Michigan that have their ice directors or hockey directors, whatever you want to call them. And I played three or with three or four of the guys with the Grand Rapids Griffins. We played together and we all settled here. You know, one guy's from Minnesota, another guy's from Canada, and we just fell in love with the area and we want to give back to the sport. Um, so it's pretty cool. That community, the sense of community is amazing.

Growth, Girls Hockey, And Regional Pull

Steve Kelso 8:50

You're talking about the length of time that you've been there, and you talk about the growth of the Walker Fitness, Ice and Fitness Center, the growth of the city has just been enormous. How have you kept pace with that? Because I imagine 10,000 people isn't what you started with 15 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 9:10

Correct. Correct. So what um uh the previous uh hockey director left, a bunch of coaches went with them. And I remember if I'm like, I think we had around eight teams, you know, a couple rep travel hockey teams, we call it, and we had our six in-house. Now, now we have just blown up to 14 teams plus plus split season team. We have a girls hockey. We haven't had girls hockey before. Love girls teams. We had two, we have two girls' teams. Um, and it's just it's just the sport is growing, absolutely right. But where walker is positioned and location is key, right? We get a lot of people coming from Muskegon, a lot of people come. We have people playing from Big Rapids. We had players travel from Traverse City to play in our program. Yes, right. So if there's not an opportunity in their town, or they might not like the setup, they will travel. And so the combination of quality of facility, programs we offer, I like to think the attention they get from the hockey director and location really feeds us to for more growth. Single sheet is tough, obviously, only so much ice. Um, and you got to remember we have men's leagues too, right? Men's leagues are constantly going, they go a lot later at night. So it's just that we got people coming from everywhere. Yeah. And and more coming every day. Correct. Yeah, this next generation. USA hockey, I think you saw the um results if you watch the Olympics with uh the women's program is grew like women's hockey is uh girls' hockey, women's hockey is through the roof right now. That's untapped potential that is just growing. Success at the Olympics, U.S. wins gold, directly translates, you know, uh eight years from now, six, eight years from now, we're gonna see the birth years of these kind of birth years around the younger generations. We're gonna go, oh, what happened? Kind of like 1980 when they when the U.S. beat the Russians, yep, right? And then hockey started spreading across the country. There's only so much growth that can happen, mind you. A lot of people are playing, but it's kind of scary and exciting, I think, what the future is gonna bring.

Steve Kelso 11:14

Yeah, that really did. I'm remembering back to that 1980 team. I remember watching that game. And it wasn't, I grew up in Peore, Illinois, and it wasn't long after that that we had a professional hockey team, and they started growing in small cities all across the Midwest. And then next thing I know, Phoenix and Tampa Bay have teams, right? Correct. So it just really there's really no end to where we can play hockey.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

Well, I think Austin Matthews from the Toronto Maple Leafs, who was the captain of the US uh Olympic team this year, was the first NHL player from Arizona, right? Like, like this is how this is the spread, right? And a quick sides, personal side story, 1980. I was eight years old in Toronto, loved hockey, was a baseball player, never skated. And I swear to God, I put skates on after that, moved to a small town in Ontario. You kind of had to in Canada, that's all we do, right? Is play hockey, right? But 1980 uh spurred me on to put skates on, right? And here I am, you know, so many years later, played hockey my whole life, and it's my and it's my job and and my life. I'll bet that's not an uncommon story in professional hockey. Correct. For that generation. That generation, and let's go to figure skating too, right? We have freestyle ice for figure skaters. We have the Lake Effect figure skating club using our ice, they help with our learned up skate program teaching the next generation. The growth of the figure skaters, it's it's trust me, hockey players are good skaters, figure skaters are real athletes. It's amazing what they can do.

Steve Kelso 12:40

Yep. And again, probably success of US figure skating has has fueled that growth.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

100%. And when we have our learn to learn to skate, our learn to skate is not just for hockey, of course, for people that might not quite know the sport so well. Learn to skate is the learn to skate, whether it's figure skating, rec skating. We have adults taking our learn to skate class, which is awesome. People in their 20s to 50s. And I think some of them directly said they watched the Olympics. I want to try to learn how to do that. Probably not the jumps, right? But they want to learn how to skate. We'll get there later on that.

How To Skate Here And Next Steps

Steve Kelso 13:15

You have open skating, you have drop-in hockey. So this is a scheduled time where people can just play pickup hockey.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

Correct, correct. Check out the Walker Ice and Fitness Center website. We will have a schedule on there. In season, we're very busy uh because of all the youth hockey programs. Our hawk hockey program plays out of there. That's the second biggest association in West Michigan. I should mention that, Hawk. Um, and so we eat a lot of ice up in season, but we still make time for open skates. So every Monday and Wednesday at noon to two or 12:30 to 2 right now, we have open skates. Um, we offer stick and puck, which is, you know, you can have a helmet and gloves, skate around with a stick and a puck. We're not, it's not organized games. You have some nets, you can shoot pucks. And then we also have drop-in hockey, which is as it says, you drop in, bring your bag, split up the teams, just have some fun. We offer that on top of our learn to skate and cross-size programs, more of a city run program versus the hawk hockey, which would be a nonprofit program that uses our rink. And so, again, opportunities to try out, absolutely. And we also offer freestyle skating on uh Friday mornings. Uh, freestyle skating would be a figure skating, open figure skating, let's say. Okay. Okay.

Steve Kelso 14:26

So I can go out there and get my practice time when I'm because I am yeah, I am working on that sow cow pretty hard. I can't wait to see that. Uh, the most important thing that you would like the good folks of Walker, really any of our law ice, our our audience listening to this today, most important thing you'd like them to know about Walker Ice and Fitness.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Absolutely, is is uh check us out, right? Uh check out the website, reach out, call asked for me, Mike Fountain, uh, Mary Kay Sherman's our our manager. She's amazing as well. There's a program for you, whatever that is. And it can be intimidating. Well, how do I start, right? Skating, skates are expensive. We have rental skates for free, included in the cost of participating, but you're not paying extra fees for skates. And we also have a pro shop. I buy and sell for the pro shop, which is a hockey shop and skating shop. So I run that as well as the ice scheduling as well. A lot of stuff going on. We we are sometimes few and do many things, uh, the staff at the Walker Ace and Fitness Center, but you got you got to start somewhere, right? Give us a call, we'll have something for you.

Steve Kelso 15:28

You know, as you and I sit and tape this episode, we're looking at the heat indexes today in the in the hundreds. I mean, it's today'd be a pretty good day to uh get out a pair of skates.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

It's incredible. I went at 12 30 Monday and Wednesdays. I was there yesterday. I came in and I'm looking around. I'm going, there are a lot of people here. Hell bet. Oh, yeah. And we're talking, you know, like not a lot, too many people, but you know, typically in the summer, there's other things to do. You might be at the beach, but you you have 30, 40 people out there. There's tons of room. Everyone's having a blast, and you get a workout.

Steve Kelso 15:59

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Can't beat it. All right, folks. He again is Mike Fountain. He is the ice manager at the uh Walker Ice and Fitness Center. This has been the next episode of the Maiden Walker Podcast. Make sure you hit like and subscribe under there, and we'll see you next time.

Nicole DiDonato 16:15

Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Maid in Walker Podcast. If you have comments or questions about this podcast, or if you have ideas for future episodes, we would love to hear from you. Please send us an email to podcast at walker.city. Maiden Walker is the official podcast for the City of Walker, Michigan. You can find Maiden Walker wherever you get your podcasts.