White River Junction
This year, it’s a new system causing the delay.
Barwood Arena’s scheduled opening will again be pushed back a week, from this Saturday to Oct. 20, in order to allow contractors to complete installation and testing for a new glycol-based refrigeration system to maintain ice in the rink. The $528,000 project includes removal of the old brine-based system and equipment and the installation of four cube-shaped chillers and piping.
“We ran into some challenges during installation, primarily just in terms of the number of bodies that can fit in the space to do the work,” Hartford Parks and Recreation director Scott Hausler said on Tuesday. “Pushing up (the opening) a week will allow us to make sure we have enough time to get it up and running and run all of the test phases, so we know we can get to the right temperature to make ice and make sure we’re ready to play the week of the 20th.”
The snag forced the Upper Valley Hockey Association, a youth hockey outfit with about 150 members, to rework its tryout schedule next week. Those sessions will instead be held at Kimball Union Academy’s Akerstrom Arena in Meriden and at Dartmouth College’s Thompson Arena. While the ice times aren’t identical to the schedules once in place at Barwood, none was rescheduled to end later than 9 p.m., UVHA president Jason Spaulding said.
“It’s the same number of skates that we had lined up (at Barwood),” Spaulding said. “It’s essentially a wash. Since we draw kids from all over, (tryouts) will now be closer for some families, while for others it will be a little less convenient. Overall, it’s not going to be a huge impact, as long as it’s only for one week.”
The Upper Valley Curling Club, meanwhile, will have to live with one less week of activity for the fall season. Previously known as the Woodstock Curling Club, the group transitioned to Barwood from Union Arena in Woodstock in 2016 in part to provide convenience for its burgeoning membership base in places such as Hartford, Lebanon and Hanover. UVCC had an open house scheduled for Saturday, and league play was set to begin Oct. 17. The open house has been rescheduled for Oct. 20.
The club installs the curling markings on the competitive sheets of ice it uses. It’s only feasible to lay them out in one arena per season, UVCC president Todd Allen said.
“We had to move everything back by a week and lost a week of league play,” Allen said. “We’re not entirely surprised by it, because there was a delay last year as well.”
Barwood Arena, which was built in the mid-1970s and has experienced numerous maintenance issues in recent years, received an assessment analysis last spring that also recommended replacing the facility’s aging flooring and dasher boards, the latter of which have too little give. While funding sources haven’t been identified for those projects, they’re being worked into the arena’s capital improvement fund plans, Hausler said.
Town funding for the rink’s new refrigeration system was approved by the Selectboard in a 6-1 vote last February.
Jared Pendak can be reached at jpendak@vnews.com or 603-727-3216.