Over this past weekend, the Crookston Sports Center suffered a power outage or surge that caused the blue rink’s ice to soften. The surge tripped the system so it wouldn’t turn back on and blew out a few fuses in the process. The Sports Center has been shut down since Sunday afternoon due to the events and will not be back open until tomorrow, which is why the facility has been completed shut down today.
Crookston Parks & Recreation Director Jake Solberg provided some details about how they discovered the problem. “On Sunday, we were planning on having the rink open for some open hockey and practices that were going on, and we received a call around noon saying that the ice was starting to puddle up,” said Solberg. “So as a staff, we went out there, and that’s when we realized that the chiller had been off.”
The chiller circulates the water back and forth, and once it reaches a specific temperature, the compressors will shut off for safety purposes. Sometime over the weekend, the chiller turned off due to the power outage or surge. The problem has since been fixed, but the Sports Center will remain closed until tomorrow to ensure the blue rink can get strong ice back.
Solberg isn’t sure exactly when it took place but believes it was sometime Saturday night. “Saturday morning, one of our staff members went out there to check the building, and everything was running fine,” said Solberg. “That was around noon that day, and then I got a phone call the next morning, and that’s when things kind of went haywire.”
Solberg says the Sports Center has been shut down since Sunday afternoon to fix the problem, but things should be back up and running as soon as tomorrow. “We were pretty much shut down from Saturday night into today,” said Solberg. “We got everything fixed, and Valley Electric came out and did a good job getting everything back and running again. We will remain closed until tomorrow to make sure we can get the blue rink back to strong ice.”
The plan is to have the rink open tomorrow for open hockey and UMC practices that are scheduled to take place. If anything changes, the Parks & Recreation Department will send out updates informing the public.
