New 'eco-ice' revives hockey rink in Echo Bay

A new ice system - the first of its kind in Ontario - has given the Echo Bay Sportsplex a new lease on life, and the people of Echo Bay a sheet of ice to skate upon this winter.

The eco-ice system, also known as ‘Eco Glace’, is manufactured by Quebec-based company leprohon, and enables the rink to keep its on-ice temperature consistent in a cost effective manner.

“We investigated a company out of Quebec that sold these units that actually cooled the building down,” said Township of Macdonald, Meredith & Aberdeen Add’l Mayor Lynn Watson. “It only runs when the temperature get warm outside, and the rest of the time the building stays cool because of the natural temperature outside.”

The process of constructing the eco-ice system began in November, and was completed by mid-December, at a price of roughly $500,000. The ice was officially open to the public Jan. 2.

The eco-ice system acts like a large air conditioning system, says Watson. It chills the air in the rink when it’s too warm outside, but when it’s really cold out, the system doesn’t operate. Instead, a series of fans pull the cold air into the building and across the entire ice surface, while fans on the opposite side of the rink suck the warm air and humidity out.

“It’s done everything we were told it would do, we’ve been very satisfied with this unit,” Watson said.

The temperature on the ice is set to -5C, which pretty much guarantees harder, faster natural ice than the previous ice at the arena, says township leisure services coordinator Cindy Findlay.

“Normally our old building would hold the ice for three days, and that’s with the insulation.” Findlay said. “Sometimes we had almost a foot of ice, so that we would just scrape it and get to the hard stuff, that’s how we used to run.”

“A lot of teams that use our ice would call up, then we would have to call and cancel because mother nature changed the temperature and we couldn’t use it,” said Watson.

The Echo Bay Sportsplex was literally blown apart during a propane explosion in February 2015. The town’s hockey rink has been in a state a flux since that time.

“It was a small propane leak, and propane is heavier than air,” said Watson, while showing SooToday a room that houses the arena’s zamboni. “The propane just built up in this small room until that heater ignited and blew that room all over the yard out there, and the rest of the building.”

Now, in 2018, the Echo Bay Sportsplex is an up-to-date hockey haven, complete with expanded dressing rooms, showers, a carbon monoxide alarm system, and a skate sharpener.

The eco-ice cooling system even has its own three-phase power supply that is separate from the arena’s own power supply.

“We can keep track exactly what this unit costs to run,” said Watson.

There’s just one more hurdle for the new and improved Sportsplex. The rink is actually built on sand now, but the township is waiting to hear from the Ontario Trillium Foundation to see if it will receive a grant in order to lay down a cement floor.

But in the meantime, Findlay says the rink is officially open and playing host to a number of open skates, shinny, and organized hockey games. 

“Two weeks ago we had 52 skaters on a Sunday afternoon,” Findlay said.