Competitors follow the puck in January 2016 during the 12th annual Can-Am Pond Hockey Tournament on Mirror Lake in Lake Placid. The event is expected to expand in 2017 with the addition of ice sculptures. (Enterprise photo — Lou Reuter)

LAKE PLACID — The CAN/AM Hockey Group plans to expand its multi-day, annual pond hockey tournament at the end of January to a Pond and Hockey Fest weekend, featuring a snow sculpture competition and an indoor youth tournament.

On the weekend of Jan. 26-29, CAN/AM will host its 13th annual pond hockey tournament on the frozen surface of Mirror Lake behind the Golden Arrow Resort, an event that attracted hundreds of players and more than 70 teams to the village to play on 20 rinks last year.

CAN/AM founder Bob Murch reached out to Lake Placid village Mayor Craig Randall late last month about having five to eight snow sculptures in the municipal parking lot from Jan. 22 to Feb. 6. Murch desired for the sculpture showing to be extended through the Empire State Winter Games the subsequent weekend of Feb. 2-5, which he has discussed with Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism CEO Jim McKenna.

“He’s looking for ways to make the pond hockey weekend more of a weekend here and have some events,” Randall said at a village board meeting earlier this month.

Randall added that ROOST’s feedback was that the snow sculptures would add to the ambience of the ESWG weekend.

In an email to Randall, Murch said the addition of the sculptures is an effort to expand CAN/AM’s impact in the Lake Placid community, and asked to use approximately 10 parking spaces in the municipal lot.

Murch said the sculpting showcase and contest would also serve as a state championship and qualifier for the 2017 National Snow Sculpting Competition in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, scheduled to take place the week following Pond and Hockey Fest. CAN/AM’s U.S. office is based in Williams Bay, Wisc.

“We would like these State Championship sculptures to be placed in the eastern part of the large parking area that is situated across the street from the Olympic Center and in the pathway of our participants walking from the hotels to the Olympic Center,” Murch wrote. “This would provide maximum exposure.”

Murch added that he had been in contact with Town of North Elba Park District Manager Butch Martin about the snow-molds for the sculpting event. Multiple phone messages left with Can/AM for Murch this week were not returned.

“CAN/AM is continuing pond hockey but also adding a youth tourney indoors,” McKenna said this week. “To build under a brand such as ‘Hockey Fest.’ …We are engaging with them to do that to also have them available for Empire State Winter Games the following weekend.”

Before a batch of cold weather right before last year’s CAN/AM Pond Hockey Tournament, last winter’s warm weather jeopardized the pond hockey tournament being hosted on Mirror Lake.

The village board put in motion contingency plans to host the event on Paradox Bay or at the Olympic Oval in conjunction with CAN/AM and the Park District began work on creating the rinks with only seven inches of ice on the lake.

Back-to-back winter weekends

The village, ROOST and CAN/AM are looking to continue to expand the festive nature and scope of the back-to-back weekends to end January and begin February of CAN/AM Pond Hockey and the ESWG as an ideal time to market the village to tourists.

Last month, the organizers of the ESWG announced plans for a new event, a Marathon Skate around Lake Placid at a press conference in Canton. Randall said more than 2,000 participants are expected this year after more than 1,800 athletes from across New York competed last year.

Randall and McKenna said the ESWG intends to expand with more competitors from neighboring states and from across the border in Ottawa after a small number of Canadians competed last year. With its geographic growth, the event plans to increase adaptive sports competitions, along with the Marathon Skate.

The ESWG also hired Greg Borzilleri, Ironman Lake Placid Race Director and new owner of the Lake Placid Marathon and Half-Marathon, as the operations manager of the ESWG. Borzilleri said this week his three-month duty with the ESWG will be similar to how he oversees Ironman, but on a bigger scale, working with sports directors for each of the ESWG’s events to ensure each event has what it needs, including contingency plans in the event of warm weather.

ESWG Executive Director Tait Wardlaw and ROOST are again organizing the ESWG plans for this February. McKenna said involved parties met this week to discuss the plans for the ESWG, now fewer than 80 days away.

The 2017 Saranac Lake Winter Carnival in the neighboring village will be held from Feb. 3 to 12.