No ice, ice baby: Regina’s outdoor rinks delayed due to warm weather

Here’s something you wouldn’t expect in Saskatchewan: City crews are struggling to make ice in the middle of December.

The unusually warm weather is causing some delays at ice rinks across the city.

Mike Robinson, the co-ordinator of parks maintenance with the City of Regina, said the city started flooding rinks during the last week of November.

“Typically in a normal year, we can get the rinks built in two to three weeks,” Robinson said Monday. “But this year is unusually warm and it’s going to take quite a bit longer, I think.”

The warm weather is causing some delays in installation, he said.

“It just slows us down. On days that it’s freezing, we can flood, but on (days with) plus temperatures, we just don’t flood. It just doesn’t work,” Robinson said.

Maintenance can be a lot of work as well, when the snow actually falls.

“We clear the rinks of snow every day and flood them every second day,” he said. “If it’s a heavy snow, we use a mechanical snowblower to blow out the snow. Then we have our blade trucks that push the snow out the gate and we hand-shovel around the boards.”

Preparations for the rinks start in late fall.

“We level out the crusher dust that’s on the base and then we just start applying water,” Robinson said.

The city has 56 rink sites, 24 of which are boarded.

Thanks to the balmy temperatures, none of the rinks are ready yet.

“Hopefully if it stays below freezing, we should have then ready within a couple of weeks. But if it’s plus temperatures, it might take a few weeks longer,” Robinson said.

Mike Robinson of the City of Regina said the weather is delaying the opening of outdoor rinks in the city. (Nicole Garn/980 CJME)

He can’t say when the rinks will be ready, noting it’s all dependent on Mother Nature.

If warmer weather continues, people could see ice rinks being completed much later than normal, along with facilities for other popular winter activities like skiing and snowboarding.

Robinson is hoping for a Christmas miracle.

“We just hope to have these rinks done before Christmas,” he said.

Indoor rinks are fully operational for those with an itch to get on the ice. For a full list of rinks in the city and their status, click here.