Putting the Valley on ice

For a community that is glazed with ice in some places for months at a time, who would have thought there would be a demand for more ice?

The call is not for more ice on the roads, or even more ice in people's drinks, but the indoor kind of ice.

For two decades, the Brett Memorial Ice Arena has been the only source for indoor ice in the Mat-Su area, and the only facility for indoor ice enthusiasts such as hockey teams, figure skaters or those who just like to skate around a bit.

But in the last year there has been a virtual explosion of construction of ice rinks, and by mid-January there will be three indoor ice facilities in the Mat-Su area.

Now, in addition to the Brett, locals will have the option of skating or taking in an event at the Curtis C. Menard II Memorial Ice Arena in the Wasilla Multi-Use Sports Complex. On Jan. 3, those on the Palmer end of the Mat-Su area will have their own piece of indoor ice at the Palmer Ice Arena.

Each of the three indoor ice facilities has been under some sort of construction in the last year. In May, officials at the Brett arena discovered leaks in the refrigeration system that cools the ice surface of the facility, and that system had to be replaced.

The Menard arena hosted its first tournament last spring and celebrated its official grand opening with the start of the prep hockey season late last month. The Palmer Ice Arena, originally set to open Oct. 15 but delayed by the worldwide steel shortage, is scheduled to open its doors Jan. 3.

When the Palmer arena officially opens, residents of the Mat-Su area will go from facing a severe shortage of indoor ice to the luxury of three facilities within a 30-minute drive.

Brett Memorial Ice Arena

As the Brett arena continued to be the Valley's lone indoor ice facility with each passing year, the demand for time on the indoor ice grew and the possibilities dwindled for those who wanted to acquire significant time on that ice surface.

The Brett was booked from morning until night, forcing some groups to use the ice around midnight and in the very early hours of the morning. The demand by organizations for use of the ice left little time to schedule open ice or special events for the skaters who don't tote a stick or shoot a puck.

The lack of available time at the Brett ultimately led to the creation of other facilities in the Mat-Su area, but the opening of additional rinks should not greatly damage the Brett's business.

Brett arena program director Sheree Hugli said the biggest loss will be the prep hockey games. After Jan. 3, Palmer High School will play all of its home ice hockey games at the Palmer arena and Colony High School will play half of its home hockey games at the facility.

The rest of Colony's games will be split between the Brett and Menard arenas. Houston, Wasilla and Susitna Valley high schools will host prep hockey games at the Brett and Menard arenas.

Hugli said only 22 high school hockey games will be played at the Brett following its Monday reopening -- quite a difference from a full slate of high school games in past years. But with the space left by the lack of prep games, the Brett will look to other ways to fill the ice time.

"It'll open up other opportunities," Hugli said.

Hugli said the Brett's schedule for the upcoming months is basically full and on a daily basis the facility fields calls from those looking for ice for various reasons.

Currently, most of the requests are from youth associations, from all over the Valley and even the Eagle River area, but the availability of more ice time could open the door for adult hockey leagues and for reasons other than hockey.

In May, Brett officials discovered pinhole-sized leaks in the pipes of the refrigeration system used to cool the ice surface of the facility.

Due to the number of leaks and the difficulty of finding the leaks, the problem turned out to be more severe than originally diagnosed. The system could not hold compression and the ice didn't stay frozen. The Mat-Su Borough Assembly allotted $400,000 in August to replace the failed refrigeration system.

The old refrigeration system at the Brett arena was encased in cement underneath the ice surface. This made diagnosis and repair a long, tedious process. The new, state-of-the-art system is exposed, above ground, covered with sand and graded before the ice floor is placed on top.

Hugli said the new system had to undergo a five-day pressure test in order to guarantee a date of Nov. 15 to reopen the facility. The test concluded Nov. 6 with no problems reported.

The new refrigeration system isn't the only recent renovation to the Brett facility -- the arena's locker rooms have also recently been refurbished.

Curtis C. Menard II

Memorial Ice Arena

The unveiling of the Menard arena marked the opening of a state-of-the-art indoor ice facility within the also recently opened Wasilla Multi-Use Sports Complex.

The arena is a 1,700-seat facility with seating for 950 in the lower section and 750 in a recently constructed upper section. The upper section is retractable and both sections include heated seats to combat the 18-degree temperature needed to keep the ice cool at its surface.

Bruce Urban, Wasilla recreation and cultural services manager and the manager of the arena, said public response has been positive.

"Everyone likes what they see," Urban said. "We have a few things we're working out -- those little details we run into. Everyone is being patient. If we don't have them worked out within the next year, people have the right to complain."

The arena is complete with four hockey locker rooms and there are men's and women's locker rooms and showers for patrons of the complex's turf field and indoor track.

Palmer Ice Arena

The Palmer Ice Arena, originally set to open Oct. 15, did have a minor but uncontrollable setback. Construction was temporarily delayed due to a worldwide steel shortage. Other than that complication, Rick Koch, Palmer's director of public works, said construction is right on schedule, if not ahead of schedule.

Crews will pour 300 yards of concrete Nov. 22 and workers are finishing the interior. Koch said the concrete will require a month to cure once the it is poured, but in the meantime crews will begin putting up the boards, installing bleachers and starting construction of the locker rooms.

Koch noted that not only is the construction going well, but the arena is going to come at a good value to the city.

The cost to construct the 40,000-square-foot facility, according to Koch, will be about $80 per square foot, once the facility is completed.

"That's a smoking deal," Koch said. "Less than it is to build a house."

The city also received a bond and multiple grants to fund the project. Voters approved a $1.5-million bond in October 2003 and more than $1.3 million in grants have been received for use on the project.

"It speaks to the ability of our councilmen," Koch said. "[They've] been pretty creative."

Koch said those involved have taken some risks, but the moves have worked out in the long run for Palmer and the project.

Koch used $300,000 to buy a used ice refrigeration system, scoreboard, skate sharpener, Zamboni and other equipment from the defunct Bonnie Cusack Memorial Ice Arena in Anchorage. Koch said the decision saved about 50 cents on the dollar.

The facility will be about 35,000 square feet on the ground floor, and more than 4,000 square feet have been allotted for an upstairs conference room area.

Koch said the upstairs portion was added to create classrooms and give coaches somewhere to take their teams before or after practice.

The arena will also include five locker rooms -- four for the teams using the facility and one to accommodate the growing number of women and girls participating in the game of hockey.

Scheduling

The Menard arena has been the only facility in use for the last few months, because of the delay in opening the Palmer arena and refrigeration problems at the Brett.

One significant issue that resulted from the unexpected closure of the Brett and delay of the opening of the Palmer rink was the already-scheduled ice time -- specifically, the scheduling of the high-school games.

A cooperative effort between representatives from both the arena and high-school programs averted major problems.

"It went really well," Urban said. "We sat down and did a joint schedule based on the opening of the Brett and Palmer."

The Menard arena is currently hosting all of the high-school games, but that will change in the upcoming week as the Brett returns to its regular schedule.

As the Palmer arena prepares for its grand opening, opponents have raised the concern that there is about to be too much indoor ice in the Valley. Some have even suggested at Mat-Su Borough Assembly meetings that the public would be better served if the Brett was transformed from an ice rink into a library.

But those who have called for more ice in the Valley say each of the three facilities will get their use.

"Not going to be too many years we're going to be in the same situation," Koch said.

Urban said it is unrealistic to think all three arenas will be jam-packed from the starting point, so the arenas will need to be creative in marketing their ice and in determining who will be offered ice time.

"No one is going to be filled to the brim," Urban said. "We are all going to have to work together to continue to develop new clientele."

The additional ice time should open up greater opportunity for those who want to use the ice but don't always tote sticks and chase pucks.

Each of the three arenas will have allotted times for public open-skate sessions. Urban said the Menard arena allots times in a different way than the Brett does, and now offers public skating on Thursday and Sunday evenings, and daily, Monday through Friday.

Urban said many of his requests are hockey-related, coming from not only the prep ranks, but the youth associations.

Requests from the youth associations have come not only from Valley organizations, but Eagle River and Anchorage-based clubs.

Urban addressed the issue of the allocation process and giving preferential treatment during the summer, stating the arena has its own allocation process that gives local organizations, for the most part, preferential treatment.

An exception would be if an outside organization, such as a sponsor of a trade show, wanted to rent the entire Wasilla Multi-Use Complex.

Jamie Smith, head coach of the Houston High School hockey program and a director of the Big Lake Hockey Association, said the additional ice will be a huge benefit for the local youth programs.

"It's awesome -- the people in our organization are ecstatic," Smith said.

Smith said teams who have, in the past, seen the ice just two or three times a week are now skating four and five times a week. Morning practices for the high-school teams will become a thing of the past and the prep squads will have additional time each day to skate, he added.

The additional indoor ice has also enabled the Valley to host special events.

The Brett arena has hosted prep region and small-school state championship events in the past, but the addition of the two rinks could make it possible for the area to host such events on a regular basis.

The Menard arena hosted the Alaska Aces' intrasquad scrimmage in October, and, according to Bruce Urban, its operators are talking with University of Alaska Anchorage officials about hosting the Seawolf Hockey Green-Gold Game intrasquad scrimmage.

The Menard arena will host Great Land Conference hockey championships in February, while the Palmer arena will host Region III hockey championships in February.

Rumors still swirl about the possibility of a Junior A hockey franchise coming to the Valley. If those rumors become reality, the Menard arena could be a home of the new local franchise.

For users of the arenas, the costs to rent the ice are comparable. Rick Koch said Palmer will charge $165 per hour for the ice at the Palmer arena. The Brett currently charges $180 per hour, while use of the Menard rink costs $185 per hour.