Prince George’s annual winter multi-sport relay, the Iceman, is being held on February 11th – nine days from now.
One of the legs of the event is skating, which takes place at the Ice Oval behind the CN Centre.
However, there is a serious issue – according to Ice Oval Society President Kathy Lewis, the oval has just about completely thawed again and the dirt base has turned to mud.
“We do have a potential weather window coming up, where if we can get enough floods in we might be able to get a sufficient base in for Iceman,” she said. “I am probably unrealistically optimistic, but we are going to give it a try anyway.”
Lewis said they have to wait to start flooding the oval until the ground freezes, the forecast says that could start to happen as soon as tonight (Friday).
“If we can get three to four floods a day we might be able to build it back. We are going to give it a try and see how it goes.”
The oval is asking for additional volunteers over the next week to help them try and reach this goal.
“No skills required, just the willingness to hold on to a wet, cold fire hose and move them around,” Lewis said. “We like to have eight people – two people on each of four hoses. It makes it faster and safer.”
Interested volunteers are being asked to email [email protected].
“We are getting a good community response,” she said. “It shows how important the oval is to the community, especially for Iceman.”
Lewis added the calls to help flood may be last-minute as temperatures and conditions change.
The winter of extremes – both -40 and +13 were observed in January – has not been good for the Ice Oval, which has only been open five total days this winter.
Lewis said those days were very busy, and people were happy to get out and enjoy the space while they could.
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