Ducks serving community needs during coronavirus lockdown

Right now, we’re all navigating a world where the majority of us are facing unprecedented circumstances without much of a guidebook. We’ve all had to find way to work with what we’ve got, handling things one problem at a time and sometimes getting creative with our resources.

One of the resources the Anaheim Ducks have plenty of right now is real estate, using it to solve a couple of very different community issues.

First, in Irvine, the Great Park Ice practice complex is home to four ice rinks for the team and has been closed since March 18. The largest of these is Rink 2, an Olympic-sized ice surface that’s 15 feet wider than NHL regulation. At 8 a.m. on Thursday, that rink was opened to become a storage facility for the Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County, now housing 120 pallets of premade food boxes.

The Ducks confirmed to the Los Angeles Times that more food would be delivered next week.

A completely different kind of need was also able to find some relief thanks to the Ducks and Honda Center, opening up the use of their parking lot for marriage ceremonies.

When the county courthouse closed due to the coronavirus outbreak, the the county clerk-recorder Hugh Nguyen borrowed three ticket booths from the fairgrounds — providing a safety shield between himself and those seeking civil ceremonies — and parked at Honda Center to keep this service going.

The Ducks even added a photo backdrop with the words “Hitched at Honda Center,” a pleasant gesture in frustrating circumstances. A step further, when a couple of Ducks fans tied the knot at the Ponda, the organization had the pair’s favorite player send well-wishes over a video message: