The Belmont Complex will not have their ice rink in operation until sometime in late October, facility director Gary Montebell said.
Hockey teams have been scrambling to rent ice time elsewhere as they wait for the Belmont Complex to fix their unit that creates the frozen deck.
Belmont Complex Director Gary Montebell said the problem was first noticed on Friday, September 6.
“We noticed a discrepancy on our refrigeration readings. Everything seemed normal at that point when the system was inspected. It ran until about 11AM. I came back down and noticed the system was doing the same shutdown process.
“I called the company that does our refrigeration work and tried to do some technical (troubleshooting) over the phone, to no avail. They came back up on Saturday. We determined that we were either out of liquid refrigerant (Freon) or else a controller that runs the ice surface was not working correctly.
“On Sunday, we had a company come in and evacuate all of the Freon from the system. On Monday, we ordered the new part for the compressors. On Thursday, the part was installed and we started added refrigerant back into the system. But on Friday, after running it about four hours, we realized we still did not have enough refrigerant and determined there was a leak. We took a couple more days to analyze it and make sure we were correct.”
Montebell said there are tubes that run through the cement floor that are leaking. It will require demolishing the floor and replacing all the tubing.
“There is no way to know exactly where the leak is in the floor,” Montebell said.
The rink floor was previously replaced in 1989. Montebell said it was scheduled for replacement again next summer utilizing some grants, but the refrigeration system did not last this season. Rather than tear up the concrete now and go through several months of having no ice, Montebell said there is another plan in place.
Manager Gary Montebell expects bids to be over $100,000 for emergency ice rink repairs.
“There is a system called ‘Ice Mat’ which can be laid down over top of the concrete and make ice. They use it for the National Hockey League. I have experience using it when I worked in Virginia Beach years ago.”
He said there are three companies providing bids for the installation of the Ice Mat system. The companies will be quickly evaluated and then the order will be placed.
“We have an emergency exemption so it does not have to go through the formal bid process. Once we find out which company appears to be the most reputable and reliable, that is who we will go with.”
He was not releasing any exact numbers of the bids coming in, but said all of the bids will be in excess of $100,000. Montebell said he is hoping insurance will defray some of the costs.
He said that the Ice Mat may become a permanent solution if it works as advertised. If not, then plans will continue to do floor replacement in the future.
Montebell said he expects the process to take several weeks and anticipates having the ice rink back in operation before the end of October.
In addition to Armstrong teams, Montebell said other teams from Butler and Freeport have had to find places to play their games. Because other ice rinks are already scheduled, teams that normally play at the Belmont are finding very early or late hours to hold their games at other rinks.
“We are trying to do the best we can. We are running some dry floor activities until they start working on the rink. They can get their teams here, walk through some practice scenarios, conditioning and shooting, agility, and things that teams do anyway.”