Ice maintenance:
Costly and labor intensive
IN THE CITY
by James F. Kaiser
Ice skating at The Forum has a long history and contrary to popular belief, ice maintenance is actually one of the most expensive and labor intensive things we do. Thankfully it also brings in the most income!
Even with the winter temperatures we could not keep the ice without the refrigeration system. The Forum is well insulated and the heat generated by patrons, lighting and machinery would quickly render the ice too soft to use. The two compressors keep the concrete of the arena floor at 15 to 17 degrees but even then the ice will soften somewhat with hot water resurfacings.
Hot water is used to resurface for two reasons; keeping the ice surface smooth and keeping the ice clear. Hot water stays liquid long enough to flow into cracks and gouges and until the next pass of the Zamboni so there are no ridges between passes. Secondly, hot water contains less dissolved air. As water freezes, any air dissolved in it will form tiny bubbles; this makes ice less clear and tends to obscure the ice markings, using hot water helps keep the lines visible longer.
Care must be taken to not allow the ice to get too thick or too thin. If the ice becomes too thick it becomes difficult to see the hockey lines but it also becomes much more expensive to maintain. If it becomes too thin you risk chipping down to the concrete. Keeping the ice at a workable thickness, about 1 inch, requires constant inspection, edging, shaving with the Zamboni ice resurfacer and flooding when necessary.
We also have to monitor the temperature under the arena floor. If frost is allowed to form it could buckle the floor and break the piping. The Forum has a separate system to keep this from happening by using waste heat from the compressors to warm glycol that is pumped through pipes under the concrete floor. This system must be closely monitored to assure it doesn’t get too warm which would increase the cost of maintaining the ice. About 40 degrees is where we like to keep it.
Another item monitored closely is air quality. Luckily, The Forum has never had an air quality issue and we installed additional ventilating to assure we never do. Regular testing has confirmed the system works.
Other requirements of the ice season include more cleaning, more labor, scheduling, cleanup after storms, additional ordering; the list seems to go on forever. It sometime seems the hurried pace required by our spring show season is a well needed break!
James F. Kaiser is director of the city-owned Forum. He can be reached at 764-0491 or via e-mail at theforum@mfx.net.
