Pipe problems in Family Centre

By Tyler Lowey, Times Reporter

A monkey wrench has been thrown into the plans for hockey evaluations around Wheatland County.
A leak in one of the lines used to cool the cement for the gold arena at the Strathmore Family Centre forced the town to shut the arena down for the foreseeable future.
“We have a leak somewhere in the system. The only way to identify where the leak is, is to thaw all the ice and individually test the pipes by hooking a pressure gauge up to the pipes and run water through them,” said Mark Pretzlaff, Town of Strathmore’s manager of recreation, community and protective services.
The leak was discovered last week when the brine levels were down in one of the pipes.
Brine is a calcium chloride substance that is pumped through the pipes to keep them from freezing beneath the ice surface but yet helps keep the ice pad cold enough so the skating surface can freeze. Without it, sections of the ice will soften or even begin to thaw, depending on how big the leak is.
With the gold rink being an Olympic-sized surface, it contains more pipes than the blue arena, which has no pipe issues.
Each pipe could take upwards of one hour to test and testing will be required for each pipe to make sure they find all the leaks.
With the ice recently installed following the summer lacrosse season, the leak wouldn’t have been noticed until the ice was installed for the winter season.
Now without half the rinks in town, teams are put back into a similar position as they were one year ago. Last year, local youth teams were forced to begin their evaluation process elsewhere while the new ice plant was getting installed.
Pretzlaff said this leak and the installation of the new ice plant have “no relation.”
There is never a good time for a hockey rink to be shut down for a pipe leak, but it is ideal that teams are only just beginning and aren’t in their full midseason swing.
The leak comes one week after the Strathmore Wheatland Kings held their annual training camp. The team gave the players the long weekend off and is forced to practice in Indus. The Kings had an exhibition game scheduled Sept. 7 against the expansion Lomond Lakers at the Family Centre, but that has been relocated to the blue arena.
As is often the case throughout the season, local hockey teams have used rinks in Hussar, Standard and Rockyford to accommodate the overwhelming number of teams and players in Strathmore programs.
So, the two groups impacted most by the arena shutdown at this point in time, the Strathmore Minor Hockey Association (SMHA) and the Wheatland Athletic Association (WAA), were bailed out once again by a surrounding arena.
Jay Schultz, president of the Standard and District Agricultural Society, was taking a break from his annual harvest when he noticed a phone call from SMHA president Natalie Haslund.
Haslund was checking with Schultz to see if there was any way the ice could get put in one month ahead of schedule to help accommodate the Strathmore programs.
“We got kind of lucky and it was a slow harvest this year with the weather we’ve been having,” said Schultz. “I spoke with a couple board members and we thought if we could get enough volunteers together, we could make this happen.”
Within 48 hours of firing up their ice plant, Dave Ellis began to make the ice. After getting a solid foundation in place, they laid the white ice and eventually painted on lines. In total, more than 20 volunteers came in during lunch and around their work schedule to help get the arena ready.
“The Standard Ag Society stepped up huge for us and we can’t thank them enough for their efforts,” said WAA secretary Daun Brown.
The WAA evaluations were already underway before the rink got shut down, but still needed a few more sessions for the bantam and peewee programs.
Hockey in Strathmore has a trickledown effect, because the SMHA doesn’t start their evaluations until the WAA camps are done, so they can fill out their camp rosters with the remainders from the WAA’s camp.
“Without the double-As ending their training camps and evaluation process, we can’t get ours going,” said Haslund. “A lot of the time, we get players who don’t make those teams come play for our three older programs.”
The reason the SMHA can’t patiently wait for the WAA rosters to fill is because the SMHA needs to submit all their rosters and coaching staff to the Central Alberta Hockey League by Oct. 1, or they will be forced to pay a $250 fine for each team that hasn’t submitted their required information.
That price tag could add up fairly quickly, seeing as the SMHA will be home to four Timbit teams, five novice, five atom, three peewee, three bantam and three midget teams on the boys’ side, while also housing a peewee, bantam and midget program on the girl’s side.
The two sides came together and convinced the agricultural society in Standard to take time out of their harvest to get the rink prepared for their 452 player evaluations Sept. 10.
“We have put a lot of hours in this week to try and come up with a schedule that works for everyone. It’s something we continue to work on right now,” said Haslund. “The blue ice is a possibility, but we can only do so much on it at once. There is also the issue of needing to get the younger kids on the ice at an earlier time rather than the bantam and midget programs.”
It’s not just local hockey that has been affected by this pipe issue.
The Strathmore Minor Ringette Association (SMRA) is scheduled for their annual Come Try Ringette event Sept. 7. The event is used as a recruiter and introductory course for young skaters to try a new sport. Luckily, the SMRA was able to keep the same date and time (4:45 p.m.) for their skate and just move everything over to the blue arena. They also kept their evaluation schedule intact by moving all their ice bookings to the blue side and will not require parents and players to travel out of town.
The Strathmore Skating Club has been using the ice the longest of any of the programs and has been working on their skaters’ routines for a month now. This malfunction in a pipe has forced them to take a break from their routine.
“We had to give up a bunch of ice that we had booked to share with the other hockey and ringette programs,” said skating coach Jenifer Wickson. “I hope this delay doesn’t last too long or we might have to cancel our first competition in early December.”
The Skating Club cannot use ice east of Strathmore, as their coaching staff already makes the trip in from Calgary for practice. Wickson said going out to Standard or Hussar would not be economical for the program.
For all the local teams and programs right now, it’s a waiting game. If the leak is a major issue and multiple pipes are found defective, the concrete beneath the ice surface may have to get ripped up.
“That would definitely be the worst-case scenario for everyone involved, but we don’t think that it will be that bad,” said Pretzlaff. “We are very fortunate to have an extra ice surface and we thank everyone for their patience and understanding with this issue.”