A Destination for every season: How Osprey Valley expanded far beyond golf
No longer a golf-only facility, Osprey Valley’s transformation into year‑round destination is built on community, creativity, and memorable experiences
The Ice Skating Rink at opened to the public - free of charge - in December 2025
By Adam Stanley
How do you make one of Canada’s top golf destinations even better? You start by adding plenty that, well, has almost nothing to do with golf.
Osprey Valley has been a go-to for Canadian golfers for more than 30 years, with its three unique 18-hole layouts each providing its guests with completely distinctive golf course experiences. And, of course, TPC Toronto was added to the radars of golfers from coast-to-coast as it first hosted the RBC Canadian Open last year.
An overview of the Hoot course in its more familiar summer setting
But the energy was undeniable. Restaurants were open and celebrated. Dishes were dialled and shared quickly on social media. Community events, weddings, and special occasions were hosted. And TPC Toronto is now a 12-month-a-year facility – with no signs of slowing down.
“For us,” TPC Toronto President Chris Humeniuk says, “it was about recognizing that if you’re going to be a destination, it has to be more than just about golf.”
Great golf destinations start with golf, but as Humeniuk’s travelling experiences elsewhere have influenced him, the whole experience is often molded by everything else. The golf takes up four or five hours of a day, but lovely accommodations, the great meals, the natural surroundings and other on-site activities have just as great an impact.
“We have really focused on, ‘How do we make the overall experience of our guests memorable?’ It’s not just golf. It’s golf, and accommodations and food and quality customer service. That’s been our focus,” Humeniuk says. “Being in the climate we are, we know we’re not going to be open for golf 12 months of the year. We’ve taken that mindset and expanded it into the off-season. But we take the same approach as we do with golf – we want all those experiences, no matter how big or small, to be memorable.”
Two Brothers Restaurant in the main clubhouse; one of two restaurants located at Osprey Valley.
Villas at TPC Toronto, located behind the Hoot’s 13th hole which are open all-year for stays.
The TPC Toronto Performance Academy features three indoor simulators, a putting green and gym for all-season usage.
TPC Toronto is a high-end public course, but that shouldn’t be confused with a private club. All of the non-golf activities are focused on getting the word out about how it is welcome to everyone. As soon as it snows there are still a couple of great restaurants, Villas for overnight stays, multiple golf simulators and a top-tier academy that boasts a 50,000 square foot short-game area, snow-shoe trails, and new for this past winter – an ice rink.
“I think it exceeded all of our expectations with how the rink did and how much impact it had on our community,” says General Manager Terry Kim.
The rink, which was open to the public free or charge, was rented out by almost several minor league hockey teams from across the GTA. There were ‘Skate with Santa’ and First Responders Appreciation Day events. The literal doors of TPC Toronto were wide open – nearly five months before golf balls were in the air again. Some weekends, Kim said, the restaurants – Two Brothers and Fescue – were essentially as busy as they would be during a weekend in the summertime.
“I hear it a lot now amongst other golf pros – there is no off-season anymore. And I think that’s a good thing,” says Kim, who has worked in the golf industry in the Greater Toronto Area for more than two decades. “I think that’s a good thing. Reaching out to the community was a big objective when I joined and something like the ice rink opened us up to the community for them to ask, ‘Well what’s that?’ It helps everyone understand we’re a year-round facility.”
How, though, did a golf course even think about building an ice rink?
The Ice Skating Rink hosted everything from daily open skates to events to rentals by local junior hockey teams
Firstly, Humeniuk says, it’s about TPC Toronto’s heartbeat – it’s family owned and operated and proudly Canadian owned and operated. The thinking was, well, what’s more Canadian than an outdoor rink? It happened fast, as almost everything does at TPC Toronto, but between the fire pits and the take-out window and the hanging lights, it was done right.
At first, Heathlands course superintendent Scott Brook says, the team was talking about building a rink on one of the many ponds on site. But with unreliable winter weather, the team – under Brook’s leadership, who grew up playing hockey at a high level – decided to engage with Centre Ice Rinks, a company that specializes in portal arena technology, to help with the build.
They committed to having an ice plant (“Nothing would be worse than having this all build and planned but then the thing would never be available to use,” Brook says) and although the entire agronomy team had “zero experience” building rinks – Brook says with a laugh – it has been a tremendous success through the winter months, from hockey teams to families to birthday parties to even disgruntled fathers who were fed up with trying to build their own backyard rinks for their daughters and sons all swinging by for a skate.
March Break outdoor activities at The Kettle area and skating rink.
The Kettle food and beverage offerings that were available all winter.
Before The Rink there was the rink. And it’s just another example of how, no matter what you’re hoping for when it comes to a great destination, TPC Toronto has something for everyone – and more.
“I’ve been here 25 years now, so I’m closely tied to the family, and I’ve seen the plans on napkins from then until now. It’s been big. Finally, things happened and are happening. We never thought it would happen at once, but one thing led to another and we’re all happy with how it’s been going with the new facilities,” Brook says. “It was a lot of work, and time, and effort. But it was worth every minute to see what it has become.”
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