Arena ice suffers a mortal coil problem

When Justin Harriman went to check on the hockey arena over Memorial Day weekend, he knew immediately something wasn't quite right.

"I went in and checked on things and found an issue with the ice plant," said Harriman, the facilities manager and association director for the Cloquet Amateur Hockey Association, which operates both the Northwoods Credit Union Arena and the older Pine Valley Arena next door. He got on the phone to Jay Koenig from Gartner Refrigeration.

"After they were able to get someone to open the tower up, we found that the main cooling grid was leaking pretty severely," Harriman said. "The leak is in the cooling tower located outside of the rink and not in the arena itself."

Following the discovery, Harriman and Gartner Refrigeration were able to contact Commercial Refrigeration in Virginia, Minnesota, the area expert on ice rink cooling systems.

"Originally they were looking at a 'Band-Aid type' of approach, but they figured out that the system would not have been able to handle the amount of pressure they would have needed to keep the rink cold enough," Harriman said. "A new internal grid system will be brought in within the next six to eight weeks. Once we get the system, it will take Commercial about 48 hours to get it installed and then it will be another 10 days before we can get ice made and everything back up and running."

The Cloquet arena has been a gathering place for hockey games and many other events since it opened in 1997. It's the first time Northwoods has been closed due to a failure of its now aging ice plant.

Like most local arenas, Northwoods is used year-round. Even in the summer, there are youth hockey camps, high school camps, elite camps, and junior hockey camps.

"It is affecting us in a big way," Harriman said. "All those camps that were scheduled for the summer had to find other places to go. The Wilderness will have to move their main tryout camp, high school camps have moved, the Minnesota High Performance camps have to be moved, the Northland Development Camp is being moved. Even men's leagues are affected."

According to Harriman, the loss of revenue will have a significant economic impact. The newly renovated ice sheet at the Pine Valley Arena, aka the Barn, can't handle summertime ice needs. Pine Valley just got a new floor a few years ago and is in great shape, but the building is not designed for warm-weather hockey.

The fix

According to Caleb Peterson, Cloquet public works director, there were three options for fixing the leak. The public works staff recommended Tuesday that the city council approve the second option, which calls for removing and replacing a defective coil section. Caleb Peterson pointed out that the coil is "not something that is sitting on a shelf" somewhere - it will take more than two months to get the equipment, he said.

"This is really the only option if we'd like to have ice by the fall season," he said.

The repair will also include pressure testing and charging the system with refrigerant that was saved from the old Pine Valley rink when it was changed to an indirect system that uses less coolant.

Because the leak was discovered early and isolated quickly, the resulting coolant loss was minimal. The new repair is estimated to cost a little over $51,000, according to the proposal by Commercial Refrigeration, which the public works director said is considered the best in the business locally.

According to Harriman, once the repair is completed, his staff should have ice down and the arena ready for the public in about 10 days.

Future plans

It's more complicated than systems simply getting old.

City officials have known that something would have to be done since at least 2010, when the Montreal Protocol began to require phasing out production and import of R-22, an ozone-depleting substance. Production of the once popular coolant ceased entirely in 2020, although it is still available for purchase.

Last November, Cloquet voters approved a two-part sales tax adding up to $8 million in projects that are being funded by a half-percent sales tax. Of the money, $2.12 million is for improvements at Pine Valley Park and about $6 million is for improvements to the two ice hockey arenas, including a new system for cooling the ice, along with other improvements.

"The benefit of the referendum is that this aging system will soon be replaced," said Cloquet City administrator Tim Peterson in an email this week to the Pine Knot. "As with any aging equipment, the longer it goes, the higher the ongoing maintenance costs will be. Once we have the system replaced, leaks like these will also be considerably better, as the system will be an indirect system with less coolant liquid being utilized."

Commercial Refrigeration stated that any replacement equipment used in the current repair will not be useful when the total ice plant replacement takes place in a few years. Tim Peterson said city officials will be looking into the system replacement this fall and winter, with replacement scheduled for 2025.

"We are hearing that equipment and parts for the new system are likely 12 months out, which is the leading cause of the timeline for replacement," he said. City officials don't know yet exactly what the replacement system will be - ammonia is one option - but the options keep changing, Tim Peterson said after Tuesday's council meeting.

In the meantime, local groups that use the ice will continue to look for other options.

"I really want to thank the other arenas in the area," Harriman said. "Almost every single one of those arenas has stepped up to help find ice time for the camps and events we had scheduled. I have to give them all a ton of credit."