ATHABASCA — January is here and hockey season has officially been underway for four months, but for those who enjoy playing puck and stick in the brisk Alberta air under an open sky, outdoor rink season in Athabasca has begun — despite a warm start to the winter.
The Town of Athabasca is home to two outdoor ice surfaces, with one in Cornwall and one in Hees Estates. Parks foreman for the Town, Warren Zyla, said in his December 2023 report to council the last month of the year brought cool enough weather to begin work on the outdoor rinks.
After minor water supply line repairs to the rink shed and regular maintenance on the boards, the ice surface in Hees Estates was opened Dec. 3 and has seen regular use by skaters in the area since.
Graeme Douglas, public works superintendent for the town presented Zyla’s report to councillors during the Dec. 5 meeting and said a number of residents in the neighbourhood were working overtime on the ice surface.
Douglas said the, “Biggest reason for the Hees rink being in the state it’s in is because of the volunteers that we have up there working on it through the night.”
“Originally, the rinks were community built and run,” said Zyla in a Jan. 4 follow-up. “Volunteerism kind of waxes and wanes, so when I first started here about 10 years ago, I was looking after the Hees rink.”
“But probably about five years ago there was a number of volunteers, and I think there’s four or five people now who have taken it over,” he said.
Cornwall’s outdoor rink posed a bit more of a challenge for the parks department earlier this winter. With temperatures reaching as high as five degrees in the daytime, and as low as -20 °C overnight according to AccuWeather, both Douglas and Zyla said conditions weren’t favourable for the tried and tested recipe for ice.
“During the day the temperatures have been above zero. We’re having no luck at all (with) Cornwall, the ground is so dry,” Douglas told councillors last month. Despite daily waterings by the parks department, Douglas said “We just can’t get those temperatures to work with us.”
But after a few days and nights of colder temperatures, the efforts of the parks department paid off, and the Cornwall outdoor rink was officially opened Dec. 13.
“(Ice) just doesn’t have the same quality because it’s softer when it’s warmer. For the people using it, it’s not good, hard, solid ice,” said Zyla. “It’s quite mushy sometimes when it gets above zero, and then it’s harder to maintain because it takes a lot longer for things to freeze.
“This winter has been really nice. Despite the warm weather making things challenging to work on, it just means more people are out using the rinks, so that’s nice as well. It’s always good to see more people out,” added Zyla.
And residents of Athabasca aren’t the only ones able to enjoy the nice weather on outdoor ice. Boyle locals may be able to hit the ice this January, thanks to the volunteer firefighting crew and Boyle fire chief Darren Hill. The crew first watered the ice surface on Jan. 3 in anticipation of cooler weather in the first month of 2024.
“Usually we have it October, November,” said Hill. “This year it’s been too warm … we were definitely going to do it, just whenever it got cool enough.”
Hill said the department does the flooding, and the help of local volunteers and continued efforts by the firefighting crew keep the ice surface in skating condition throughout the winter.
“There are volunteers in the town that will go over and clear it off for us,” said Hill. “Every now and then if we’re going to do a flood, we’ll just put it out there to the public if someone wants to volunteer with a snowblower and go clear it off. It not, then we will before we flood it again after it’s been used a bit.”
If cooler weather anticipated in the upcoming weeks in January holds out, Hill said the Boyle outdoor rink should be ready for use approximately a week after flooding began Jan. 3.
