The Free Press, Mankato, MN

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    Preparing

December 19, 2009

Outdoor ice looking nice

Finishing touches being put on public ice rinks

By Brian Ojanpa

MANKATO — Making an outdoor ice rink skateable is akin to constructing a dessert torte: Place down one thin layer and keep stacking.

“It takes 10 to 15 layers, and the weather has been just perfect for flooding,” North Mankato Parks Supt. Todd Mettler said.

Outdoor public rinks in the Mankato area are undergoing final primings and should be ready for use soon if not already.

Mankato Parks Supt. Bernie Fasnacht said the Stoltzman Road rink opened last week, thanks to a $22,000 blacktop-surface upgrade two years ago that requires fewer flooding sessions.

“That rink has a huge amount of use; it’s amazing the use it gets,” Fasnacht said of the site, which lost its warming house years ago due to disrepair.

Fasnacht said an out-of-commission city bus shelter was placed there about five years ago to at least provide a windbreak for skaters.

“But it didn’t even last two weeks. Kids shot out the glass with hockey pucks,” he said.

He said crews are maintaining seven rinks this year following the elimination of two — at Buscher and Highland parks — that weren’t flooded because of paltry usage last winter.

It typically takes two weeks of flooding, with air temperatures consistently below 20 degrees, to make a rink skateable.

“At those temperatures you can flood three times a day,” said Mettler, who oversees five North Mankato rinks, including an “adopted” one at Spring Lake Park.

Mettler said a volunteer group of hockey parents is maintaining that site.

In St. Peter, volunteers are handling flooding chores for the first time ever at that city’s two park rinks.

Dave Ringler of the Bulldog Hockey Association said more than a dozen parents are pitching in to keep rink ice continuously skateable.

“Last year, after a night of hockey, the ice got chopped up pretty good, and it was to the point of frustration for us,” Ringler said.

The problem rests with the priorities of city crews, which rightly must tend first to park sidewalks and trails — and get to rink maintenance when they can.

Ringler said the parent volunteers ensure there is no maintenance lag time and will even remove rink snow when the situation warrants it.

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