Bowie ice arena closed again for mechanical problems

[Query]

Sigh, my otherwise favorite rink has had troubles this season.

https://www.cityofbowie.org/105/Ice-Arena
https://www.facebook.com/bowieicearena

[Query]

They remain closed.

The Facebook page makes it sound like it might be closed for a substantial amount of time. Perhaps the original postings of "a few days" will blow up into a few weeks when all is said and done?? It's already been over a week, and they need to remake the ice after being shipped unspecified hardware. I don't know and haven't been able to get better info. No one I can find is taking phone calls.

The pictures I saw made it look like there was something blue on the ice (??) - maybe one or more pipes carrying refrigerant burst? No data on whether such a pipe would have been from above (those pipes were rusting), or from below. There were some time lapse pictures on one of sites which showed people repainting the floor - but I don't know if that is recent, or from an earlier prep cycle.

The Talbot FSC has posted a note on Bowie's Facebook page inviting Bowie skaters to go to their club sessions at (I think) TFSC rates of $17/hr.

Tucker Road Ice Rink is somewhat closer and cheaper, but beware of traffic jams on the DC Beltway, which sometimes take hours to get through. But sometimes getting to and from Talbot takes hours too, though maybe that is mostly in the summer, for the beach?


Oh well, what can you expect? When the Mayor of Bowie and his followers on the city council decided to cancel the new Bowie Rink, they knew this facility was aging and would have problems. (In the end, cancelling the contracts on that rink, plus cleaning up the site, is costing many times what the mayor claimed - and the new two sheet facility was nominally projected to make more money than it cost to run. I don't know a lot about finances, nor do I have an easy way to review everything involved, but I wish the section around the ice rink, and the area where a replacement could now be built could/would secede and do something about it. There is actually a region of the current park adjacent to the current facility where they could build another sheet, which was proposed at one point - though they would have to cut down a small forest. Another proposed facility a ways north of here, on a golf course, is in the planned Bowie budget. But politics is too complicated for me to understand. And of course there are competing interests for all government activities. Both the old and new proposals look fancier than needed - all that matters to me is the ice. The facility doesn't need to be beautiful.

[Query]

Addition info from a person associated with the rink: the blue stuff on the ice was probably paint, not refrigerant, that blurred when the ice melted, due to the failure. No pipes burst. I guessed wrong.

People have mentioned that some delays occur because original parts are no longer available. The rink was built in 1971. (That means it has lasted slightly longer than the 50 year lifetime estimated for the proposed new rink.)

Is it common for ice rinks to buy a sufficient supply of replacement parts to last the projected facility lifetime? I wonder if that would make sense.

[Query]

It's been about 7 weeks since they closed. And they had problems before that this season.

They hope to bring someone in December 16 to work on it. If they fix it, then they will still have to remake the ice.

The LA Fitness club a few blocks away, which my health insurance pays for, continues to have problems with their pool and whirlpool bath. At the moment the whirlpool jets don't work, and the water is cold - and I think the pool felt a bit cold to me too. I would need a wetsuit, or at least a skin suit, to swim there.

I shouldn't complain. The Washington DC area metro area has a fair number of ice rinks and has enough wealth to attract some very good coaches. There are worse places to be a skater. (But: I've heard that Northern Virginia electricity costs are projected to increase by about 70% over the next few years because of an influx of cryptocurrency servers and other data centers. I presume it will happen in suburban Maryland and DC too, and that ice rinks costs will go up. But some of that may go away, if and when computer and network security problems destroy the value of cryptocurrencies.)

It's giving me more time to spend trying to regain my strength at the gym.