Rink ice ahead of schedule
Village residents could use surface as early as Nov. 14
Shane Magee
Northern News Services
Published Thursday, November 13, 2014
LIIDLII KUE/FORT SIMPSON
The ice at the Fort Simpson Recreation Centre rink could be ready to use by Nov. 14, ushering in hockey, broomball and skating for residents.
Trevor Kjeldsli floods the ice surface of the Fort Simpson recreation centre rink on Nov. 10. The ice surface is expected to be ready for use around Nov. 14. - Shane Magee/NNSL photo
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"We're quite a bit ahead of schedule," said Nathan McPherson, the village's recreation coordinator.
Last year, he recalls the ice being ready Nov. 23, which he believed was one of the earliest times the ice was ready.
With the temperature dropping, open doors
around the rink let nature cool the surface.
Three staff members have been flooding the concrete rink surface since Nov. 7. Three to four hours after putting water down, it's ready for another layer. The work takes about 14 hours per day over about a week to complete.
What it means for the user groups is being able to lace up the skates sooner than previous years and for the rec centre, that's a good thing.
"It's our busiest season all year," McPherson said about ice season.
It's still too soon to say how registration numbers for all the various ice user groups will turn out for this year, he said.
The curling rink ice surface is prepared by the curling club and he said its surface is ready to use.
Other rinks still weeks away
In other Deh Cho communities, ice users will still have a few more weeks to wait.
In Fort Liard, it'll be about mid-December before its rink is ready. That community doesn't have the concrete base the village does, which means it takes longer to get the surface ready.
Trout Lake usually clears a spot on the river once it's frozen solid enough, though the band is looking into making a skating rink on the ball field.
The Wrigley outdoor rink is usually ready by the first week of December.
Roxanne Konisenta said she's trying to find funding to prepare an outdoor rink in Nahanni Butte this year.
Kakisa is building a new structure on the grounds where the outdoor rink normally would be, so it isn't clear whether there will be one this year.
A call for information about what's happening in Fort Providence wasn't returned as of press time.
Tournaments cancelled
Back in Fort Simpson, McPherson said as the ice goes in, he's hoping to reschedule two gymnasium-based tournaments that were cancelled.
The first, a ball hockey event planned for the weekend of Nov. 8, didn't go ahead after only one team signed up.
The second, a dodgeball tournament planned for this weekend, will be rescheduled to sometime in December because the facility is hosting the Saturday memorial service for Minnie Letcher, the chief of the Liidlii Kue First Nation, who died Nov. 6.
