On this day last year, you might have been out on one of St. Albert’s outdoor rinks enjoying the tail end of the season.
This year, however, the rinks and outdoor surfaces have been closed for nearly two weeks, since Feb. 29. And even before that, the month of February was tough for skaters.
“The outdoor rinks and Lacombe Lake were actually closed temporarily about two week prior, because of the warm weather,” said Kristen Schopper, the city’s event and facility scheduler.
The decision was made to close the rinks much earlier than previous years due to unusually warm weather. The El Nińo weather pattern in the Pacific Ocean this year is blamed for warm winters in North America.
City staff struggled throughout January and February to maintain ice surfaces before pulling the plug on the outdoor skating season. At some points in February, the grass was actually poking through the ice in the sunnier spots of the rinks.
“As it continued being warm, they came to the conclusion it wasn’t worth bringing back the pond, and they couldn’t sustain it either,” Schopper said.
The tough weather this year had a significant impact on groups like Wonderfun Hockey in St. Albert, which uses the outdoor facilities for their laid-back alternative to traditional minor hockey programs.
President George Huls said the organization, which is active in the months of January and February, has struggled in several of the past years with the warm weather.
This year the kids missed several days, falling far short of the 17 sessions they would get in a perfect season.
“The first two Saturdays in January we had to cancel because it was -28 with the wind chill,” he said. “And we also cancelled this year because it rained, or it was too warm and the ice was in poor condition.”
Huls said this seems to have been a trend in the last few years, with warmer weather closing rinks more often than when he first became involved with the organization nearly a decade ago.
“When my son was playing in the younger years, we were playing more frequently, and if it was cancelled it wasn’t because it was too warm it was because it was too cold,” he said.
Registration numbers are also declining, down to 98 this year compared to 127 four years ago. Huls said there’s likely more factors than just the weather at play in that trend.
Fortunately for skaters who don’t want to wait until the rinks freeze over again next November, there are a few options in the city to go for a skate. There are five indoor rinks, plus added leisure rink in Servus Place, that stay frozen until late April and will get iced up again in late August.
And even through the summer, the Troy Murray and Mark Messier arenas in Servus Place will continue to have ice in them.
“Our programming offers some public skate times and some shinny times throughout the summer,” Schopper said.
