Thanks to a busted pipe under the ice at the Elgar Petersen Arena, the Humboldt Broncos' game against the Melfort Mustangs, scheduled for Jan. 12, was cancelled. The game will be rescheduled to a later date.
The pipe, carrying a salt-water mixture used as part of the arena's cooling system, burst around 6 p.m. on the night of Jan. 11. The damage was confined to the area around the goalie crease at the west end of the arena, but the decision was quickly made to cancel the Broncos' game, scheduled to start about 24 hours later.
"We weren't sure about it, so we figured the best thing to do was make the decision a day in advance," said Lawrence Dunne, facilities manager with the City of Humboldt.
For Broncos coach and general manager Dean Brockman, he found out about the issue when his phone started blowing up.
"I thought that was strange because the day after the trade deadline is usually pretty quiet," he said. "So at that point I figured something was up."
Dunne believes the pipe was damaged when holes used to keep the nets in place were drilled into the ice. That realization means those holes, drilled into the ice during intermission at Broncos games, won't go quite so deep anymore.
It will be another couple of days before the ice is completely restored, layer by tiny layer, but the rink was reopened on the morning of Jan. 13, less than two days after the incident.
Late that morning the Broncos were back on the ice practicing and, at least according to goalie Ryland Pashovitz, there was nothing wrong with the ice.
"It seems good," he said, "no problems with it."
The lost game against Melfort will be rescheduled, though Brockman couldn't say when.
"We're working on some dates right now that work for both teams, but it's going to happen," he said.
