REAL not concerned about Iceville melting during high January temperatures

While the mercury is rising around Regina, Iceville is ready to handle the heat.

The massive outdoor skating rink at Mosaic Stadium has been a popular attraction, with hundreds of spots for a week being filled within minutes.

Scott Manson, director of site and facilities with Regina Exhibition Association Limited, said officials don’t expect any problems, even with the temperature rising to above 0 C.

“The good news for us is that ice is anywhere from four to upwards of nine inches thick, so it takes a lot of heat. It can absorb a lot of energy before you start to see melt. So when we get a little bit of heat during the day, you might see a little pooling in certain spots but overnight it’ll freeze back up and be good for the next day,” Manson said. “If you fall, you might get a little wet but there shouldn’t be a safety concern at all.”

About 400,000 gallons of water were used to create the 100,000-square-foot rink. That’s as much as 150 concrete-mixing truck drums.

Manson said REAL has six to eight people a day out looking after the ice and making sure it’s in good shape.

“We do inspections every morning. Our ice-making crew — the same ones that are working inside the Brandt Centre and inside the Co-operators (Centre) — they come out and they do inspections every morning. They’re doing a walkthrough on the ice, they’re checking for defects and cracks, they’re touching it up and they’re flooding with the same equipment we use in the Brandt Centre and Co-operators Centre,” Manson said.

But what will be done when the ice eventually needs to be moved out of the stadium?

“When the weather starts to rot the ice and we start to see cracks and see it break up, what we’ll do is we’ll move in with some equipment and we’ll break it up and we’ll pull it out and let it thaw out on the asphalt,” Manson said.