The Moose Recreation Centre is sporting a new concrete slab, new boards and new glass. It reopened on Oct. 17, 2022 after a lengthy closure. (Photo Courtesy Bob Schneider)

By Chris Brown

Reopened on Oct. 17

Moose Rec Centre feels like new after upgrades, says city’s parks and rec director

Oct 18, 2022 | 4:29 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – For the first time in about two and a half years, the familiar sound of skates cutting through ice could be heard yesterday at the Moose Recreation Centre.

“We’re really excited to be having Moose back open again,” James Will, director of the City of Medicine Hat’s parks & recreation department, said Tuesday. “It feels like a new ice surface and feels like a new facility once you’re inside the boards.”

The building was closed in the early days of the pandemic and then kept closed by the previous council as the city grappled with a budget crunch in December 2020. A year later the new city council unanimously supported the funding needed to reopen the Moose Recreation Centre.

About 30 people came out for public skating and Will said “we’re doing a slow start so we’ve got more activity happening as the week goes on and back kind of into regular programming as we start up next week as well.”

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He said an extra rink in the city opens up more ice times for user groups like the Medicine Hat Ringette Association, which will use the Moose as its home rink, and Medicine Hat Minor Hockey Association.

With a total budget of about $1.5 million, the Moose received a new concrete slab and brine lines, new rink boards and glass and resurfaced spectator benches. Will said the building was starting to show its age after more than five decades of use.

“There’s lots of older ice slabs out there around North America but as they get older you start to experience brine line leaks and issues with just cooling,” he said. “The previous ice surface we had trouble actually freezing near the boards and so you start to get soft ice and it becomes a safety issue when you go up against the boards and you have really a wet surface there that’s not really binding with the boards and with the concrete below it. So it needed to be done. It was past the point where we could safely operate it.”

Will added that the new slab is more level than the old one and the ice surface is the coldest the city has ever been able to make it. Floods will freeze quicker than they would before, eliminating puddles that were often seen after a flood.

The shell of the building was built in the 1960s, Will said, and his department will continue to look at other parts of the Moose and its operations that may need work. He mentions improved accessibility in the changerooms and better space for mixed-gender teams as two areas that are being looked at for upgrades.

The Crestwood Recreation Centre was closed at the same time as the Moose, and council also voted to reopen it in December 2021. It reopened a few months later.

Those aren’t the only city recreation facilities under review, and Will said there are questions about investing in older facilities and what the future looks like for them.

“We intend to bring that forward to council and council will have the full picture and look at what all the options are in front of them.”