The program faced a challenge about what to do when Lasker closed this season as part of a $150 million renovation project in the north end of Central Park that's scheduled for completion in 2024.
Already working under constraints of the COVID-19 pandemic, IHIH officials had to figure out where its participants would practice and play this season and how they would get there.
Wollman offered a perfect solution. On Wednesday and Thursday evenings, cones section off a part of the giant rink so IHIH beginner players can take part in skating and skills drills without pucks, Garvin said.
"Right now, we're waiting on foam dividers to come in to divide the ice in terms of skating drills (with pucks)," said Garvin, a former IHIH participant who went on to play NCAA Division III hockey at Western New England University. "But right now, we're doing a lot of skating, a lot of edge work."
More experienced IHIH participants are practicing and playing games at the City Ice Pavilion and at World Ice Arena, each in the borough of Queens, about a 45- to 60-minute commute from Harlem, depending on traffic.
Garvin said the Wollman arrangement helps ease the sting of IHIH paying about $21,000 to rent ice time at the Queens rinks this season and at least another $50,000 to bus its players to the facilities and games out of town.
But the expense and travel hassles are worth it, he said.
"It's money well spent because it gives the opportunity for our kids to be part of an ice hockey team in a program such as ours, which also offers enrichment programming," Garvin said. "The exposure outside the neighborhood is truly priceless."