Binghamton Pond Fest to Return to CV State Park Next Week
Binghamton Pond Fest is nearly back here in the Southern Tier, in just over a week, the annual festival will return to Chenango Valley State Park.
Tytus Haller, a Southern Tier native, came up with the idea to bring back his childhood memories to the community, starting the Festival in 2016.
"We'd go out, we'd be able to go play, skate on a pond and enjoy kind of grassroots events," Pond Fest Founder and Director Tytus Haller said. "We don't have that now. It's been 40 degrees the last few weeks. So with what we do here now, we're still able to offer people that kind of unique experience. For the older guys, take them back to childhood memories, and for the younger crowd and the kids that come here give them an experience that maybe they don't have the opportunity to have nowadays the way the weather is."
To combat the warmer weather, Haller and co. have opted for a refrigerated set-up.
"We noticed that a lot of other places we're doing some hockey events, we just thought it'd be a good fit for Binghamton," Haller said. "We tried to do it and we had some issues with the weather and the projects just kind of evolved. Now we rent a refrigeration unit with help from the county, with help from the New York State Park system, and we're able to basically do something very unique in Binghamton that typically you don't see except for in other big cities with other big cities with a fully refrigerated set up so that we can play games, have events here regardless of the weather."
Haller says the team is ahead of schedule for next weekend's event. This year's pond fest will feature over 100 teams and registration is closed, but there will be a try hockey event on January 20th supported by the Southern Tier Hockey Association, Binghamton Blizzard and the Ice House Hawks.
"We have gone overboard on what we expected, we're going to have well over 100 teams playing here over the next three weeks," Haller said. "We will be promoting a try hockey event for Saturday, January 20th. That'll be free for people to be supported by the STHA, the Binghamton Blizzard and then the Ice House Hawks will also have a presence. So we'll be able to hit all three levels of youth hockey and involvement opportunities for kids to get involved in the sport."
Binghamton Pond Festival is produced by the non-profit, Broome Winterworks, with $50,000 raised for youth education and support since the event started in 2016.
"It's all been kept locally, but our group is now working on a new event that we're hoping to have kicked off in April," Haller said. "We're working with some members of SUNY Broome Community College to host an event for kids and for families and to try to promote healthy mental health habits, healthy mental health living and try to just help everybody have a better experience in family life and help kids as they're going through kind of that evolution of life and growing up."
Haller continued to say that people who support Pond Fest are helping more than just hockey in the area.
"For everybody that supported this project along the way, that is interested in it, I just want everybody to know that what we're doing, it goes to a good cause and there's more growth coming to this," Haller said. "Our sponsors have been huge for us over the years, we just appreciate everything everyone has put into it."
Pond Fest will also act as an opener for the NYS Parks Department Centennial Celebration.
Games begin Saturday, January 13th and will continue each weekend through the 28th. There will be a fireworks series beginning on the 13th and continuing on the 20th and 27th at 6 pm each day.
