Lakeview Community Rink Volunteering Information

Winter has been a bit late to start this year it seems, but the rink should be up and running by the time this newsletter hits your door.  It will be very interesting to see how the new concrete pad works for flooding and ice maintenance.  We should be able to get the ice in quickly once it actually gets cold enough.   

We will be holding a rink volunteer information evening just before Christmas, just after this newsletter is delivered – Thursday December 19^th at 7:00 in the field house meeting room.  Please come out and meet some of the other volunteers and learn how you can help keep our rinks in great shape this winter. 

Here are some tips and things to consider if you want to help out:

• Regular Flooding Times – Similar to last year, we are planning to have some regular clearing and flooding times when volunteers can drop by and help out – if you are a new volunteer, these are good times to learn the details of how we do it and the tips to keeping the rink as nice as we can all year (times are approximate).  These may change depending on volunteers this year but we will keep a sign posted with any updated days/times on the field house changeroom door:
  • Thursday evening 8:00 – 10:00 pm
  • Sunday morning 8:00 – 10:00 am
  • Monday and/or Tuesday mornings – a group of retiree’s make this happen and do it many other days as required or when we have a snowfall to clear
  • Additional days and times can be set up if we have more volunteers
• Evening Lock Up of Change Room – We have a few volunteers who help to lock up the field house change room every evening around 10:00 pm – they can always use more help with this so if you live near the rink and can help please contact us.  We will especially need help over the holidays when some regular volunteers are away – specifically December 21^st to January 5^th.
• Clearing and Flooding tips – There will be a selection of shovels and scrapers out for cleaning ice between flooding times.  Please try to also shovel the snow over the boards if you push it to the edge of the rink.  A clean edge next the boards makes for much more enjoyable hockey, but it is easily messed up with snow that ices up.  Once that happens it’s very difficult to fix and typically messes up edges for the rest of the season.
• Snowfall clean-up – Whenever we get a dump of snow we need help getting the rinks cleared and the more help the better.  This is when it’s best to drop down that evening or the next morning to help anyone working on that.
• Safety – The brushes and snow blower equipment we have for clearing the rinks needs to be used with care and awareness of any kids that might be trying to use the rink at the same time.  Please ask kids to wait till the job is done or to use the rink not being worked on.  Also, please be sure to fill the gas tanks outside of the storage shed.  Any gasoline fumes resulting from spills in the storage room can spread throughout the field house and can make the rest of the space unusable.
• Equipment use and care – If you are not familiar with the equipment and the flooding hose, please join some regular volunteers to learn how to use the equipment properly.  We rely on the equipment for a very short season and need them operational for the entire time.
• Flooding – There are a number of tricks to making the ice decent for skating and hockey.  We have some good detailed notes available to share if you contact us.  It’s always good to learn while doing by joining one of our regular volunteer crews.

Thanks to everyone who helps to make our rinks fun and in good shape for our community.  Please feel free to contact me (John Evans) for more information or if you want to be added to our volunteer roster – my contact information is [email protected] or cell 403-700-1040.