The grass at East Hill Community Club will soon turn to ice once the weather allows. (Nolan Kowal/paNOW Staff)

By Nolan Kowal

Ice Ice Baby

Outdoor ice on the way as colder weather descends on P.A.

Nov 23, 2023 | 4:00 PM

Colder weather in north-central Saskatchewan has signalled the start of the outdoor ice-making season.

Several community clubs in Prince Albert have started the process of building their outdoor rinks, including East Hill Community Club.

“The start of the process is cold weather to begin with,” said Ken Dyck, the building manager at East Hill. “We start just by flooding it with water and letting it freeze, and we build it up a little bit at a time.”

“Once we get it all flooded up we’ll take the (ice resurfacer) out and level it up and smooth it out with the (ice resurfacer) and numerous floods on top of the ice and it’ll be operational.”

Dyck added that the club was planning to start flooding on Thursday. He said the weather can make the process tedious.

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“Every day it’s colder at night but as soon as the sun comes out during the day…the sun takes away what you gained,” he said. “With the weather forecast…the weekend’s supposed to be plus one, so it’s going to be a slow process.”

He said they always aim to have the outdoor ice ready by the first or second week of December every year.

“By the looks of the forecast, we should be able to make the second week of December I’m hoping,” Dyck said.

Meanwhile, over at West Hill Community Club, Chris Bender said the outdoor ice-making process will start on Saturday. He said their process will also be longer given the inconsistent weather in P.A.

“When the daytime highs are staying freezing, then we’ll start to flood,” said Bender, who works as a caretaker at West Hill. “It can take anywhere from a couple days to put it into two weeks. It all depends on the weather…if we get really cold weather you can almost flood back to back to back and have it done in a couple days.”

“Whereas if it’s kind of like the weather we got, it’s going to be probably a week and a half to two weeks for sure.”

Bender added that they’re also targeting the first or second week of December for having the outdoor ice ready.

Environment Canada is forecasting a high of plus one for Friday in Prince Albert before temperatures dip again next week.

The outdoor surface at West Hill Community Club. (Nolan Kowal/paNOW Staff)

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nolan.kowal@pattisonmedia.com