Although the municipality’s new Zamboni has arrived, renovations to the Zamboni room—to allow for the new, taller machine to properly dump snow—have been postponed until the library moves out of the activity centre and into its new building.
The library has been operating in a space below the bleachers since 2012, when construction began on the new library and cultural centre. The new building is scheduled to be completed Oct. 2 and the library is expected to move in sometime after that date, allowing the municipality to build a fire-safe boiler room beneath the arena bleachers. That room will house a boiler, as well as a water treatment system.
The remainder of the project—namely moving the boiler from above the existing Zamboni room into its new location and increasing the height of the ceiling above the Zamboni room—will have to wait until the spring, according to Yvonne McNabb, director of culture and recreation.
“That we won’t be able to do until the spring because we can’t go without hot water for a long period of time because [the arena is] booked solid. It’s not something where you can hope and pray that you can get the whole system down and into the other room in four hours—that’s just not something you’re going to chance.”
The renovations are required because the new Zamboni, which operates on natural gas, is larger than the town’s existing machine, making it impossible for it to dump snow once it has finished cleaning the ice.
“In order to use the new Zamboni we would actually have to dump outside, which we do have approval from Parks Canada to do, the problem is ... the big doors to the outside, they’re in really bad shape, so they’re not something that you can quickly open and close,” said McNabb.
Another problem is that it would take longer to get the Zamboni on and off the ice, so ice times would have to be extended to compensate for that time.
“You’d also be tracking dirt back onto the ice, so there’s a lot of things that we’re not set up for in this facility, whereas some facilities actually have a place where they take [the Zamboni] and dump it outside, but then they have a big grate where the Zamboni would come in and sit over the grate and you can hose the tires off and clean off all the dirt and then it goes back onto the ice.”
This season, the municipality plans to use the old Zamboni—which is prone to breakdowns—until the end of its useful life, then, if necessary, it will use the new Zamboni and dump it outside, despite the additional challenges that option presents.
The municipality’s current Zamboni—a ‘95 with more than 11,000 hours of use—has been a thorn in the arena manager’s side for a number of years, with constant breakdowns and repairs taking a significant amount of his time.
Those issues were exacerbated in January 2014 when a fire broke out in the Zamboni room, causing damage to the machine.
That summer, the Zamboni was returned to Jasper after being repaired in the city, but it still wasn’t fixed and required additional repairs, which were then handled locally.
Prior to the fire, the municipality had already planned to purchase a new Zamboni to replace its 20-year-old machine; the fire just accelerated the process.
The new natural gas machine, which will significantly reduce the emissions created each time the ice is cleaned, was ordered last year.
Originally, the culture and recreation department planned to have staff complete the construction project, but it was later determined a contractor would be needed to do the job, so engineer’s drawings were drafted and the project was put out to tender.
In order to cover the additional costs, council supported a motion Aug. 18 to reallocate funds from the capital budget toward the Zamboni room project.
The roof top heating and cooling unit that was slated for the squash and racquet ball courts will now be purchased in 2016, freeing up $103,000 for the Zamboni room.
Nicole Veerman
[email protected]
