The outdoor rink at the corner of Barkman Ave. and Elmdale St. is finally open as of Monday morning.  

Head of Steinbach Parks and Recreation for the City of Steinbach, Russ Dyck, hopes that the temperatures stay cold enough throughout the holidays to maintain the safety of the ice. 

With temperatures not being very cold yet, the ice isn’t very hard, so they will be checking in periodically to check the condition of the ice.  

There are some warm temperatures in the forecast for later this week, and Dyck says depending on how the ice holds up, they may have to temporarily close the rink. 

“We'll play it by ear on a daily basis. As long as we can have it open, we will have it open, but if it starts deteriorating to a point where we'll have to do a lot of repairs, then we’ll close it instead.” 

Although they may have to close it again due to warm temperatures, it will be faster to reopen the rink as they won’t be rebuilding from nothing. 

They have been working a lot on the outdoor rink over the last few weeks, and Dyck explains why it wasn’t ready to open until Monday.

“It's a much slower process when the temperatures aren't –20, it takes longer to get the ice to freeze and build up,” he says. “Typically, if we would have started three and a half weeks ago like we did, we would have had ice at least a week ago, but unfortunately it's just a slower process.” 

He adds that they are currently working on the outdoor rink at the Jake Epp Library, and weather permitting, they should have it open to the public by the end of this week. 

 

With files from Kenton Dyck

 

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