Goodbye to PowerPlay at SportsOhio

Local News

When Dublin gathers to honor our veterans tomorrow, the person speaking at the ceremony will have some remarkable experiences of his own to draw from.

Tracy Owens is a longtime Dublin resident who spent six years in the U.S. Army, serving during Operation Desert Storm and the conflict in Somalia. His military career also included an assignment involving the establishment of American embassies following the breakup of the Soviet Union.

These days, Owens is an engineering professor at Ohio State and serves on Dublin's Veterans Advisory Committee, helping our community recognize those who have served.

He'll be the featured speaker at tomorrow's Veterans Day ceremony at 11 a.m. at the Grounds of Remembrance in Dublin Veterans Park, 77 N. High St. The event is hosted by the City of Dublin and American Legion Post 800, and everyone is welcome to attend.

Local News

Dublin's new Christmas market is bringing a centuries-old German tradition to town. And yesterday evening, three young women from our community took center stage, one from each of Dublin's high schools.

Elizabeth “Elli” Freytag, a senior at Dublin Coffman, was chosen as the first Christkind of Christkindlmarkt in Dublin. And what makes this particularly fitting is that all three finalists have German roots and an interest in the language and culture.

Elli has studied German for four years and traveled through Germany and Austria. Madelynne Greer, a junior at Jerome and one of the two runners-up, belongs to her school's German Club and has appeared in an impressive 21 theater productions. And Lily Graves, a senior at Scioto, took a different approach to learning German. She taught herself during the pandemic! She's also an accomplished violinist and competes in cross country and track.

So what exactly is a Christkind? It's a Christmas gift-bringer from a German tradition dating back to the 1500s. At German Christmas markets, the Christkind also welcomes visitors and helps open the festivities. And now Dublin will have its very own.

Elli will ring the opening bell at Riverside Crossing Park on November 21 at noon, then return throughout the season to welcome families and visitors.

The role also comes with a $1,000 scholarship for Elli, while Madelynne and Lily each receive $500. Congratulations to all three! I'm looking forward to seeing this and so many other German Christmas traditions come to life right here in Dublin.

Local News

If you've lived around Dublin for a while, there's a good chance you've spent an afternoon at PowerPlay, racing go-karts, playing miniature golf, or taking a few swings in the batting cages.

Well, those attractions are now headed for demolition.

The City of Dublin is looking for a contractor to remove the go-kart track, miniature golf course, batting cages, and several surrounding walkways and seating areas at SportsOhio on Cosgray Road.

PowerPlay has been largely closed since the pandemic, although miniature golf and batting cages briefly reopened between 2021 and 2023. The facility never fully recovered.

The bids are due November 12 and the work expected to be completed by April 30, 2027. And there's of course a bigger picture to all of this. As we've reported before, Dublin purchased SportsOhio in 2024 and has plans to turn the property and nearby Darree Fields into a much larger athletic and recreation campus.

The idea is to bring together more sports facilities, trails, and recreational spaces for Dublin families and visiting teams. There's still a lot of planning to be done before we know exactly how it will all come together.

For now, the demolition of PowerPlay is one of the first visible steps toward that larger redevelopment, and the end of a familiar part of Dublin's recreational history.