Spring Brings Ice Maintenance at Brentwood Ice Arena

To many, the sounds of spring are birds chirping, children laughing and wind rustling through the newly sprouted leaves. To the staff at Brentwood Ice Arena, the sounds are a bit different. One of the sounds we experience is silence. Just after April 15 the compressors went silent for annual maintenance. The sounds missing are the of skaters laughing, talking and swoosh-sh-sh-shing around the rink, nor is there the sound of slap-shot thuds on the rink barriers.

It is an annual affair. Six weeks of every year Brentwood invests in the future of the ice rink. The boards are hand-scrubbed, the ice is melted, the pipes that carry the coolant are checked and secured, the sand base is raked, the compressors get the once over with tweeks where needed, but all this is just the beginning. Next, the preparations for the new sheet of ice kick into high gear. Before re-freezing the ice, there has to be water. The time consuming task of soaking the sand begins.

While the sand base awaits total thaw, there are other time-consuming, even tedious tasks to be done. Rental skates must be removed from shelves, serviced and sharpened. Shelves must be cleaned. Paperwork needs to be completed. Special equipment must be repaired or polished. Then, there has to be time for lunch once in a while! All the activity moves toward the day wet sand can be frozen and we start to have ice again.

We aren’t to the stage of ice soaking yet. We will discuss that next week. The large space called the ice rink looks like a bumpy beach with lines on it. Sand hockey is out of the question. Brentwood Ice Hockey is still three weeks away. Learn to Skate lessons are just a few days farther down the line. It is a good thing we have Blues playoff success to keep us pumped!