The Jasper Activity Centre ice is a little softer than normal, and officials are feeling more than a little unlucky after not one, but two motors crucial to ice making blew in the same week.

Yvonne McNabb, director of culture and recreation, said the broken motor was responsible for the hot water boiler that fills up the Zamboni before flooding the ice.

First, the breaker on the boiler went, then the motor blew and the motherboard also needed replacing, McNabb said estimating that cost of repairs and replacements is between $4,000 and $6,000.

While Jasper scrambled to order a new motor for the boiler, the municipality borrowed one from Mount Robson.

Three days later, Mount Robson’s motor blew.

With a big hockey tournament on the weekend, Peter Bridge, arena manager, was called in to work on the ice manually.

“He had to get some hoses and pull from our other boilers, which meant because it was so cold during that week... once the water got through the hoses it wasn’t a good temperature for flooding the ice,” McNabb explained.

“It was definitely softer, he has to turn the temperature down in order for the floods to work.”

Although the exact cause of the mishap is still unknown, according to McNabb, an electrical issue likely caused the problem.

“We’re not pointing any fingers,” she said, noting that nothing like this had ever happened before.

While the two incidents have McNabb baffled, an electrician is working to determine the cause of the issue.

The equipment has also been sent back to the manufacture to check for faulty parts. However, given that the equipment is only two-years old, and has a lifetime of about 25 to 35 year, it’s unlikely to be faulty, said McNabb. “It’s brand new equipment... there’s no issues why it should be going.”

Another possibility is that it was the result of power surges felt throughout the entire community – including the Activity Centre – in the first week of December.

“We’re speculating that it is power surges,” she said.

“We have numerous power surges, just like anybody in town... they were hitting here on a regular basis, our computers were up, down, up, down.”

McNabb said she was looking into purchasing power surge protection for the equipment, but due to the amount of equipment in the Activity Centre, it was problematic.

“The problem is we have so much equipment... so we’re looking at getting them on the breaker boxes,” she added.

Despite the issues, there was minimal interruption to ice time, with some hockey games and public skates being cancelled on the first few days.