Another week, another wintertime event nixed due to bad ice. Lac La Biche Kinsmen officials announced this morning the On the Pond hockey tournament – which was supposed to take place on March 5 – has been cancelled due to ice safety concerns.
Another week, another wintertime event nixed due to bad ice.
Lac La Biche Kinsmen officials announced this morning the On the Pond hockey tournament - which was supposed to take place on March 5 - has been cancelled due to ice safety concerns.
They made the decision this morning when a Kinsmen member volunteering to clean the rinks had his leg go through the ice while making his rounds.
Kinsmen officials say that while the ice is still quite thick - about two feet where the eight rinks had been cleared - recent weather conditions have weakened the ice, making it unsuitable to host the event. They said warm temperatures caused water to over flow onto some of the rinks last week, and that water spread to all eight over the weekend. Temperatures then dropped sharply, causing a new layer of ice to form on top of the original one, with a layer of water in between. The thin top layer cracked easily and made for very poor hockey conditions, and also concealed cracks in the lower layer. One of those cracks is what the Kinsmen member fell into earlier in the morning.
Event organizer Rob McCormick said cancelling the event, though disappointing, was for the best.
“Better safe than sorry,” he said. “There’ s nothing we can really do.”
He went on to say most organizers thought the colder temperatures would get the ice in even better shape before teams took to the lake the following weekend.
“We thought because of that cold snap... that everything would be great,” he said. “The weather’ s just been so warm and cold, warm and cold that maybe we had issues.”
McCormick has begun calling teams and informing them of the news, and so far they haven’ t been happy to hear about he event’ s fate. McCormick said the teams were looking forward to the event.
“They’ re pretty disappointed that we’ re cancelling - they were pretty excited to come up here,” he said, adding that aside from the teams, he needs to contact sponsors and let them know as well. “We’ ve got to see what they want to do, you know, give their money back or see if they want to keep it for next year.”
Last week, while the rinks were being cleared, organizers encouraged skaters to use them in hopes they would help smooth them out between floods. This week, organizers are changing their tune, asking people to avoid the area. McCormick said Lac La Biche County crews will be blocking the area off as well.
“It’ s way too rough now,” he said, adding that the recent freeze of the overflow water could be hiding more cracks and unstable ice.
The Kinsmen member who went through the ice was not injured, suffering only a soaked pant leg and the shock of a cold splash. The water depth below the are where the rinks are is only about three feet deep.
