Eager residents help Strathcona rink thrive
But at 10 p.m., volunteers battle the winter elements and flood the rink to create a clean, glistening sheet of frozen water for hockey players and ice skaters to enjoy.
Roy Kuhnlein, a volunteer at the Strathcona Community Association, heads a squad of about 50 other volunteers who maintain the community ice rink. He says they can have up to a dozen volunteers flooding the ice at night. Kuhnlein said he helps out himself at least a couple times a week.
“There’s a core group of people that look at the forecast and say, ‘Yea, it’s going to be cold so we can flood’,” Kuhnlein said.
However, a major challenge facing the volunteers is Calgary’s fluctuating temperatures that can cause the rink’s conditions to change, resulting in cracks or slush.
“The real problem is the warm weather, because all that hard work you’ve done gets wiped out and some pieces of ice need special attention.”
Despite the long list of volunteers at the Strathcona rink, Kuhnlein said it can be a challenge for other community associations to find residents who are willing to help out late at night.
“Just making sure you get enough people out is probably your biggest challenge. From there, it’s having a good base of equipment. Getting volunteers to bring in their own personal gear can get a bit tricky at times,” Kuhnlein said.
John Wilding, a frequent user of the Strathcona rink, said he appreciates the work that goes into maintaining it. He said he and some friends plan on joining the volunteer team to add a few more helping hands.
“We just live down the street. It’s the best ice of any rink in Calgary we’ve played so far,” Wilding said. “It must be rough coming out here to do that stuff, especially when it’s 20 below.”
bdufault@cjournal.ca
nhilts@cjournal.ca
How important is an ice rink to your community?
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
We would love for you to republish our student work!
Just scroll down to copy and paste the code of our article into your CMS. The codes for images, graphics and other embeddable elements may not transfer exactly as they appear on our site. It's free! We only ask that you follow some simple guidelines when doing so:-
You've gotta credit us. In the byline, we prefer “Author Name, Calgary Journal.” At the top of the story, include a line that reads: “This story was originally published by the Calgary Journal.”
-
If you’re republishing online, you must link to the URL of the original story on calgaryjournal.ca.
-
You can’t edit our material, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style. (For example, “yesterday” can be changed to “last week,” and “Abbotsford, B.C.” to “Abbotsford” or “here.”)
-
You cannot republish our photographs or illustrations without specific permission. Please contact managing damclean@mtroyal.ca for more information.
-
Any website our stories appear on must include a prominent way to contact you.
-
If you share the story on social media, we’d appreciate a shout-out @CalgaryJournal (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram)
- If we send a request to change or remove Calgary Journal content on your site, you must agree to do so immediately.
This policy was adapted from ProPublica and Wisconsin Watch.
If you have any other questions, contact our managing editor Archie McLean at damclean@mtroyal.ca