Winter is coming and one of the surest signs of its upcoming arrival is the installation of the ice surface inside of the Elgar Petersen Arena.
Director of Community and Leisure Services Mike Ulriksen explains that the process, which takes approximately two weeks, began last week with the ice plant being turned on.
Over the August long weekend, workers began putting water down on the surface.
A new feature of the ice installation this year is the new white mesh product. Ulriksen says that in the past, they used white paint before transitioning into the new system this year.
“Just like our logos are made of a mesh fabric that's printed now our entire white ice is several rolls of mesh across the entire surface of the ice.”
Ulriksen added, “Instead of having to paint white ice and then have the mess of the white paint residue and things like that after the season. And this is just a reusable mesh roll that we can roll down and in the in the at the end of the year, the ice will get melted, we'll just dry them off, roll them up and they’ll be able to get reused every year.”
Mother nature didn’t lend a helping hand in the beginning of August with the hot temperatures followed by some rainfall.
The weather caused humidity issues Ulriksen explains.
“When we're putting ice down the way the refrigeration system works is the refrigeration system wants to suck all the heat out of the building and disperse it outside.”
He added, “The humidity within the building gets really high because some of that moisture gets mixed in with the air and we do have a dehumidification system that tries to clean some of that out, but it's just it can't keep up with the amount of water we're putting to the air and it doesn't help when the outside temperature is also is very humid on the outside as some of that air gets sucked into the building as well and just kind of mixes in.”
When there is too much humidity, the water doesn’t want to freeze as easily, Ulriksen explains.
But with some extra work from the staff, Ulriksen says they’ve been able to mitigate those areas and everything remains on schedule.
With the ice removal in May, it makes for a short offseason inside of the Elgar Petersen Arena. Ulriksen said the indoor facility was kept busy during the summer months with events including the T1D 4x4x48 Dine and Dash banquet fundraiser, graduation ceremonies, the Summer Sizzler and the Grassland Sheep Exhibition in July.
The ice should be ready for usage on Monday, August 18. The first week will be filled with a hockey school, with some open slots available.
On August 25, the Humboldt Broncos will begin their hockey camps and that will be followed by the team’s fall camp.