An “unforeseen mechanical difficulty” with the Athabasca Regional Multiplex’s ice plant means Athabasca’s 2019-20 skating season will be delayed until about Oct. 1.
In an Aug. 21 email, Multiplex general manager Kelsea Brown stated the delay was “to ensure the safety of the plant, the Multiplex, and all users.”
Facilities manager Rod MacGregor said due to mechanical failure, the ice plant cannot start up.
“Gateway Refrigeration out of Edmonton was rebuilding one of the compressors during scheduled maintenance when they discovered the failure,” MacGregor said. “I do not know exactly what it is, but I do know that it is internal within the ice plant itself.”
He added he would like to see the machine repaired and ready to use before the estimated date, but he said that is all up to Gateway Refrigeration.
“They are ordering what parts they need, and they will send me a list of what needs to be done,” MacGregor said. “We were all excited to get the ice in, but now we have to wait.”
Athabasca Regional Multiplex Society board Christine Bilsky said it is unfortunate to have the delay this close to the start of the fall sports season.
“It’s a whole month,” Bilsky said. “The ice was supposed to be in right after the Labour Day long weekend, but now we have the delay. I would imagine that all the user groups are really disappointed, and so are we, but what do you do?”
She said as far as the board is concerned, there is going to be some costs involved with the delay.
“We do not know exactly what those will be yet, and we likely won’t until the end of September,” Bilsky said. “It’s too bad that we did not discover this issue a month ago so we could have had it repaired already, but it’s better late than never.”
MacGregor said they always get a refrigeration company to shut down the plant professionally every spring, and then get them to start it up again in the fall.
“They have their checks and safeties, and they go through it,” he said. “The delay may not be convenient, but it’s to ensure the safety of the plant itself. It’s better to be safe than sorry.”
Bilsky said they hope that their stakeholders can be patient during the repair process.
“It’s definitely not something we intended to happen,” she said.
MacGregor said the delay will affect the start of the seasons for both the Athabasca and District Minor Hockey Association and the Athabasca Skating Club.
“The Hot Karl Memorial Draft Tournament is also affected,” MacGregor said. “They will proceed as scheduled Sept. 6-8, but they will be playing ball hockey instead.”
Minor hockey president Dustin Pysyk said the delay has definitely “put them behind the eight ball” in terms of their planning.
“We are in the process of coming up with a game plan, which involves some neighbouring communities such as Calling Lake and Boyle in order to make things work,” Pysyk said. “It’s a little bit of a distance to go for a whole month, but we will try to make the best of this situation.”
He said that they are hopeful that they can still do what they are planning to do.
“We have some outside evaluators coming in,” Pysyk said. “We hope that they are open to coming out to a different community. We have also been planning for some specialized coaching for skating and conditioning for the first two weeks.”
Overall, he had lots of plans in the works for the month of September.
“That’s on top of picking our teams and getting ready for the start of our season Sept. 27,” he continued. “It’s always better to play at our home rink instead of the extra travel expense to go to a neighbouring community that makes it harder on our hockey parents, especially those who have more than one kid playing minor hockey on different levels.”
Pysyk said as a former general manager of the Multiplex, he knows that the maintenance team is working to the best of their abilities to get the issue fixed as soon as possible.
“From that background, I understand the timeframe that they are dealing with,” he said. “But saying that, it’s still unfortunate the ADMHA is put into this position.”
College hockey challenge
One activity that will not be affected by the delay of the ice plant at the Athabasca Regional Multiplex will be the Athabasca College Hockey Challenge. The reason is that there is not going to be one this year.
The Athabasca Minor Hockey Association’s board of directors decided back in April to cancel the event for 2019.
AMHA president Dustin Pysyk said the decision was made “based on several factors.”
“One of the factors involved was sponsorship commitments,” Pysyk said. “It just was not where we needed it to be at the time, and we did not feel comfortable carrying on because of that.”
He said another issue they were dealing with was a lack of needed accommodations for the visiting hockey teams.
“For the weekend that we did have scheduled, there were no hotel rooms available in Athabasca as they were already booked for other engagements,” Pysyk said. “This meant we had to look elsewhere to set aside rooms, and we did have some booked in Westlock. But that adds another travel expense for us, and it’s not fair to the teams either to travel for an hour to get to their games.”
He said while the issues were not something they could not have worked through, the board felt it was best that they not hold the event this year.
“This would have been the fourth season we had put on the event,” Pysyk said. “It was a major fundraiser for us, and it was an event the community gets involved with every year, not just the hockey membership. It was also an activity for the kids as well. What we will miss the most is having our local kids interact and learn from professional athletes. The knowledge that the athletes and coaches brought to the community was invaluable for our local youth.”
He said there is talk about revisiting the idea of holding the event in either 2020 or 2021.
“There has been no official decision as of yet, but we are hopeful,” Pysyk said.
