Monday, May 16, 2016

Ice, Ice Baby!

Wayne Pansegrau: Heritage Classic in Calgary
Wayne Pansegrau has an odd fascination for ice.

It's that passion that has the Kelowna resident attending the Memorial Cup this week in Red Deer overlooking the crews making the ice surface for the 10 day tournament.

Pansegrau's company, Top Shelf Arena Services, is contracted out by the Canadian Hockey League to make sure the ice surface is at the top of it's game.

"We will come out and we will do a couple of scrapes and an edge and then a few floods, three or four floods. It's not really too hard. The games themselves, having one game a day, isn't too taxing on the surface. It is the practices on Thursday that will give this sheet it's greatest test."

Pansegrau says if the ice isn't good, the players will tell him about it.

"In a tournament like this you definitely hear about it whether it is good or bad. The biggest thing for ice and the quality of it is humidity. With no humidity, I don't see any issues with heavy snow on the ice or anything like that".     

Pansegrau's passion for making ice is well documented.

The Rutland Senior Secondary grad was a member of the ice crew at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and most recently participated in the 'Stadium Series' where an NHL regular season game is played outdoors.

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