Bum Slaying: VGK Gladly Collecting Points From League’s Worst

“irst, there’s the battle with humidity, which can wreak havoc on the ice. More than a few cities have been hit with unseasonal temperatures and that can put some buildings into overdrive when it comes to maintaining the in-arena temperature and ensuring hard, fast ice is present. But there’s also a matter of cramming nearly 15,000 people into an arena, and the impact fans have can’t be underestimated.

“People bring in a lot of moisture and a lot of heat on their clothes,” Lenko said. “If (the arena) has the equipment to deal with it, it’s no problem, but if they don’t it absolutely creates a huge load on the ice.”

Most buildings have elaborate control systems to deal with humidity, but that’s not necessarily the case everywhere. While it’s not an NHL building, Cleveland’s Quicken Loans Arena had its first brush with maintaining their rink all the way into mid-June in 2015-16, but Matthew Miller, vice president of facility operations at ‘The Q,’ said they deal with humidity the “natural way,” which is to say there’s a careful balance between air conditioning and outside air. In an 800,000 square-foot building, that can get tricky, especially with the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers packing the building on nights the AHL’s Cleveland Monsters are off.

Ideally, Miller explained, the building’s temperature sits in the 64 to 66 degree range for hockey, but that’s not the case for basketball. The temperature rises to 68 degrees for an NBA game and the packed house can account for an additional rise of anywhere from three to four degrees. But as much as the humidity and temperature can impact the ice, so, too, can the fact that Miller and his crew are swapping out the ice for the hardcourt on a regular basis. 

The rapid changeover in modern arenas is something Lenko pointed to as one of the other major issues facing the NHL in maintaining top quality ice, and Miller understands the difficulties as well as anyone. Not only did the Monsters play into June for the first time in their history during the past season — a campaign that culminated with a Calder Cup victory on June 11 — but the Cavaliers completed their own successful title run eight days later. That means the entirety of the post-season was spent swapping the court in and out, covering and uncovering the ice.

The unfortunate thing for the league in their pursuit fixing what ails their rinks is that if environmental factors and shared-use facilities are becoming two of the greatest enemies of good ice, finding a solution won’t come overnight. The league can’t control the weather and arena owners are in the moneymaking business. The interest in packing the house on non-hockey nights isn’t about disappear.

“The more it’s uncovered and the more oxygen and air that gets to an ice surface, the better it becomes over time,” Miller said. “It’s a daily challenge in a multi-use facility like ours to really get the ice surface to where it’s perfect all the time. If I didn’t have to cover it and I could leave it all the time, it would be a hockey player’s dream. But I don’t have that luxury.”

In closing, we all know that climate change and global warming is a made up hoax. For God’s sake the planet has been warming since the last ice age. And there is nothing man can do about since the sun is main driving of energy on earth. But “ice rink climate change” is real and is man made, as shown by the many facts listed above. Remember this GOOD ICE MATTERS !! GIM
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THE FIFTH LION !!