Two months ago, Nathan Jesse was concerned the ice wouldn’t be installed at Affinity Place in time for the 2016-17 hockey season.
The five-year-old events centre was under water after Estevan received more than 125 millimetres of rain in a two-hour span on July 10.
The water was cleared away from the arena floor, dressing rooms and most of the other areas. But the ice plant, which sits several feet beneath the ice surface, was flooded, and much of the equipment was damaged.
Thanks to some hard work, and a plan to use the ice plant at the Power Dodge Ice Centre (formerly the Lignite Miners Centre), ice installation started at Affinity Place earlier this month, and was slated to be finished earlier this week.
“It’s been a long run, and our staff have worked really hard, as have our contractors,” said Jesse, the manager of leisure services for the City of Estevan. “We’re pretty happy with the outcome, and the creative solution we had to get to where we are.”
The ice plant at the Power Dodge Ice Centre is being used to cool the ice at Affinity Place.
“We’ve had to do some piping to connect it all together, and then some small maintenance upgrades,” said Jesse.
Jesse said the city knew all along the Power Dodge ice plant might be an option to create ice at Affinity Place. The city approached engineers to find out if it would work, and in late August, the engineers said the Power Dodge ice plant had enough capacity to cool the ice at Affinity Place.
The Power Dodge ice plant had been used to provide air conditioning at Affinity Place during the 2016 Saskatchewan Summer Games.
Ice making at Affinity Place started on Labour Day. City employees worked quickly to ensure the ice would be ready for the Power Dodge Estevan Bruins’ home opener on Sept. 17.
“It’s been lots of work to get here, and our staff have been doing lots of hours and working really hard to get here,” said Jesse. “But as of today (Sept. 13), the ice is looking really good.”
Jesse stressed the city employees are the reason the Bruins will be playing at Affinity Place this weekend.
The ice has been painted and the logos have been added. The final layer of water was to be added on Sept. 14 to make sure the ice would be have adequate thickness.
He cautioned that if Affinity Place becomes too warm, it could affect the quality of the ice, since the ice plant at the Power Dodge Ice Centre can’t be used to cool the ice and run the air conditioning at the same time.
But they are confident the ice will be fine, and it will be covered with the temporary flooring for several days during the Estevan Showcase Business Expo from Sept. 23 to 25. Once Showcase is finished, the ice activities at Affinity will resume.
The city had installed ice at the Civic Auditorium in August in case Affinity Place wouldn’t be ready for the start of the season. The Estevan Minor Hockey Association and the Estevan Figure Skating Club used the Civic for their late summer sessions, and the Bruins held their training camp and pre-season games there.
Chris Lewgood, the head coach and general manager of the Bruins, said they are excited to be back in Affinity Place, and he is pleased the fans will be able to watch hockey in the events centre.
“We’re really happy the city has gone to the lengths that it has to make this thing work,” Lewgood said.
The club didn’t experience any problems with training camp and exhibition games in the Civic, and some of the players, especially the locals, were even looking forward to playing regular season games in the 59-year-old venue.
“The few pre-season games we played there, it suited them just fine, but they’re happy to get back here now,” said Lewgood.
The team’s dressing room, offices and players’ lounge were “mildly affected” by the flooding and the sanitization process, Lewgood said, but he noted the players will be in the dressing room for the season opener.
Lewgood praised the city staff for their tireless efforts to make sure the Bruins time in the Civic went as smoothly as possible, and to ensure Affinity Place would be ready for the start of the season.
Jesse expects the first shipment of parts for the Affinity Place ice plant to arrive in the next few days, and then work will start on the rebuild. They have cleaned the mess left by the flood, and they have removed equipment that was damaged.
A timeline hasn’t been established for when Affinity’s ice plant will be finished, but Jesse is hopeful it can happen this fall. Once it is, operations will return to normal, and they will start to install the ice at the Power Dodge Ice Centre.
