The Heritage Junior Hockey League’s Mountain View Colts had hoped, along with all of the Didsbury arena user groups, to get back to using the main ice surface by February 1st.
However, the Town of Didsbury has now announced that won’t be possible.
According to a media release, “the Town and the contractor fully explored a number of different options, but none were successful; installing ice prior to replacing the condenser is no longer and option for the arena.”
Mayor Rhonda Hunter notes they are very sad for their arena’s user groups that this has happened, and they didn’t expect this to happen. She says “you know I can’t even ask them for patience and understanding. I didn’t want to say that again. I just wanted to say that it’s disheartening that we had to relay the disappointing message that we relayed today. We feel it right along with you and we know how important our arena and curling rink are to our community. We weren’t going to salvage the curling season, we’d already decided that but we are very sorry the skating season ended up like this.”
An ammonia leak had been discovered in the condenser unit/cooling tower on the exterior of the facility during regular maintenance back in December. It resulted in the ice being removed from the arenas and the curling rink.
A plan was then put in place to try and use a rental chiller unit but the Town of Didsbury has revealed that “once the contractor began the process of setting the unit up and connecting to the existing system, it became apparent that it would not work as proposed.”
Mayor Rhonda Hunter explains how the decision was made. She says “the decision was made that the ice wouldn’t have been able to be in, not even maybe until the end of February – and we didn’t even know if that was guaranteed. The decision was made that we we wouldn’t continue with that. We’re not going to continue to put efforts into something that isn’t going to work, and money.”
She says Didsbury council has approved the purchase of a new condenser unit and the Town looks forward to having it installed this summer and operational for the start of next season.
