The 2019 rink season was one of our best!  Compared to the previous season, we had 4 additional, dedicated volunteers contributing to ice maintenance. This allowed the 2 core volunteers that maintained the rink in 2018 to reduce their time at the rink from 80-100 hours for the season down to 50-60 hours.  It also meant the rink was cleared of heavy snow-fall more quickly, and flooding happened more frequently to repair ice surfaces.

We hope this same level of volunteerism continues so that we can continue enjoying a rink in Kingsmere Park.  If you are interested in volunteering, here is a summary of what is involved:

1. Maintenance team: volunteers work several days or evenings a week between mid-December and late-February to create the ice skating surface, and repair and flood it each evening (or day).

Flooding both rink surfaces takes 3 hours when saturating compressed snow to create “base ice”, and it only takes 90 minutes when flooding on top of clear ice under good conditions.  Once “base ice” is created, shovel and scrape the ice before flooding on any given day.  This can take anywhere between 30 minutes for ice chips created by regular skating, all the way up to 6-8 hours for heavy snowfall (with 5 snowblowers going!)

2. Supervision team: a minimum of 10 volunteers are needed to take one 3-hour shift each week between mid-December and late-February. These volunteers are responsible for:
i) unlocking the fieldhouse so community members can use the change room and washroom,
ii) being the emergency contact if there are any problems (e.g. call 911 if someone is hurt),
iii) taking head counts each hour,
iv) tidying the fieldhouse, and
v) occasionally clearing snow (they are not required to clear all snow, as anyone using the rink for recreation are welcomed to do so with the shovels available)

Schedule for supervisors:
– Weekdays: one 3 hour shift from 6pm-9pm
– Saturday: three 3 hour shifts starting at 11am
– Sunday: three 2 hour shifts starting at 1pm

Either of the above are great opportunities for students requiring volunteer hours!

New volunteers can make themselves known to the GPCA by Friday, October 25th, 2019 so that we have confirmation before we need to sign the rink agreement with the City of Ottawa. Community members interested in volunteering are asked to contact Adam Norman by email (glabarparkca@gmail.com) or call/text 613-552-5615.

Unfortunately, if there are insufficient volunteers, there will be no community rink in 2019-2020.

Last season, work to build base ice started on December 26th, 2018, and the rink was open for skating on January 6th 2019.  During those 11 days, we:

• compressed the snow in the hockey rink and in the puddle rink
• flooded the compressed snow to saturation, waited until it froze, then flooded again (and again)
• flooded an average of 2-3 times a day, sometimes up to 6 times a day if conditions were favorable

All volunteers are asked to participate in the creation of the initial ice surface, or “base ice.” The initial ice build requires temperatures to be consistently below -5C (-10C is better), and regular flooding of the area with water in order to build the base. This flooding can occur at any time of day (morning, afternoon, evening), and we will be in need of volunteers to flood the ice as soon as temperatures allow (usually the 3rd or 4th week of December) in order to get the rink up and running. Flooding involves taking a 1″ hose and spraying the entire area (both hockey rink and puddle rink) to saturation. Initially, each flooding will require 2-4 hours per flooding, and as a watertight area is created with surface ice, the time will reduce to 1-1.5 hours. Approximately 5-10 floodings are required to create base ice before it can be skated on.

As you can understand, the timing of this initial work is subject to weather conditions. We will not know exactly which date to start until a few days beforehand. This requires flexibility on behalf of the volunteer group, and as usual, the more people involved the better.

Once base ice has been created:

We ask everyone who uses the ice to shovel the ice.  Snow and ice build-up needs to be removed from the ice surface (especially beside the hockey boards) before it damages the ice, and so that volunteers can flood.  At the same time, we ask that everyone stay off the ice when the temperature is above freezing.  Attempting to skate or walk on soft ice causes damage that takes longer to repair.  It is very disheartening to arrive at the rink with a plan to flood it, only to find that someone has created boot prints that need extra time to repair before flooding can start.  Please stay off when the “rink closed” signs are posted!

The last day of skating was March 9th 2019.  There were 11 days the rink was closed because of weather, or because we were repairing the ice because of previous weather conditions.

Even though we had more volunteers in 2019 than the past couple of seasons, we are still in need of additional volunteers to supervise the fieldhouse (‘rinkhouse’).  Throughout the 2019 season, I was constantly asking for volunteers to come forward and keep the fieldhouse open – this is a requirement for the City of Ottawa to provide the boards, lights and other equipment for the rink.  If you are able to volunteer 1 evening a week, we need you!  This is a great opportunity for students requiring volunteer hours!

The City of Ottawa requires us to record the number of skaters every hour during supervised hours.  During an average of 25 supervised hours per week, we logged 1158 skaters in the 2019 season – up from 694 the previous season!

We had a lovely rink volunteer appreciation dinner at Colonnade Pizza on Sunday, April 28th which was attended by a number of families of rink supervision and maintenance volunteers from the 2018-19 season.