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Final two sheets of ice open Saturday morning at the newly-expanded Schwan Super Rink at the National Sports Center

Expansion brings the facility to eight sheets of ice, making it the world’s largest

Columbia Arena closed Friday night

Blaine, Minn. (December 15, 2006) – The National Sports Center (NSC) announced Friday afternoon that it has been granted a certificate of occupancy for the newly expanded Schwan Super Rink. The two final sheets of ice will open on schedule at 7:00 a.m. on Saturday, December 16. The addition of the new rinks, called rinks 5 and 6, bring the Schwan Super Rink’s capacity to eight sheets of ice in a single facility, making it the largest ice arena of its kind in the world.

 

The new sheets of ice are part of a 128,000-square-foot four-hockey rink addition, which brings the size of the facility to 300,000 square feet. The addition was designed by Rozeboom Miller Architects and constructed by Kraus-Anderson Construction Company. The four new sheets are NHL-size ice.  The original Schwan Super Rink, which opened in 1998, featured four Olympic-size rinks. In addition to the skating surfaces, the arena offers a full-service café, the Hat Trick Café, 32 locker rooms, and off-ice training facilities.

 

“A huge amount of credit goes to Kraus-Anderson Construction,” said Schwan Super Rink Ice Operations Director Pete Carlson. “They hit their numbers to the day, and we’re opening right on schedule.”

 

From ground breaking to opening, the new arena was built in just over a year. Construction began in early December of 2005.

 

Construction finishing continues on some of the off-ice components of the expansion, such as the 25,000 square foot Herb Brooks Training Center, a state-of-the-art dry land training center adjacent to rink 6, a new figure skating training area, lobby entrances, offices, and elevated viewing areas. The arena should be fully completed in late January of 2007.

 

Bethel University will adopt rink 5 as home ice for their men’s and women’s hockey teams. The first home game for the Royals men’s team will be January 9 vs. the Toronto Rattlers. The women’s team will take to their new home ice for the first time on January 12, vs. Amherst.

 

Rink 6 will be used by the Herb Brooks Foundation for on-ice training programs.

 

When not used by Bethel University and the Herb Brooks Foundation, much of the ice time on rinks 5 and 6 will be rented to youth hockey associations, figure skating practices, and ice-sport tournaments. The first user of the ice on rink 5 will be the Champlin Park Youth Hockey Association, at 7:00 am Saturday, followed at 9:20 am by the Tri-City Youth Hockey Association. The inaugural user of rink 6 will be Forest Lake Youth Hockey, at 7:30 am Saturday. Irondale Youth Hockey will take over rink 6 at 11:00 am.

 

Now that all eight sheets of ice have opened at the expanded Schwan Super Rink, the NSC will close 39-year old Columbia Arena, a two-sheet facility in Fridley, Friday night.

 

“The compressors will be turned off at Columbia at 10:00 p.m. tonight (Friday),” said Carlson.

 

Many of the Columbia Arena user groups will transfer their ice rentals from Columbia Arena to the new facility.

 

Kraus Anderson Construction Company paid the NSC $3 million for the Columbia property. The budget for the new four-sheet expansion at the Schwan Super Rink is approximately $10 million. The original Schwan Super Rink, which opened in 1998, had a construction cost of $11.5 million.

 

The new addition was built without any money from the State of Minnesota. The proceeds from the Columbia sale were applied to the new construction. Building partners, which include Blaine, Centennial and Forest Lake Youth Hockey, Bethel University and the Herb Brooks Foundation contributed up-front payments that raised an additional $3 million. Anoka County sold construction bonds to finance the remainder of the construction costs, which will be paid for by ice rental revenues.

 

The first major ice event scheduled to use all eight sheets of ice in the new Schwan Super Rink will be the Schwan Cup high school hockey tournament, December 27-29. The existing Schwan Super Rink attracts over one million visitors each year. The new four sheet arena expansion is expected to nearly double that attendance.

 

An official arena dedication ceremony will be held January 19, 2007.

in February of 2007.

 

 

FURTHER SCHWAN SUPER RINK EXPANSION FACTS:

 

On a typical Saturday or Sunday, the Schwan Super Rink rents 14 hours of ice daily on each of its eight sheets, generating a total of 112 hours of rented ice time daily.

 

On a typical weekend day during the winter season, an average of 3,360 skaters will skate on the ice at the facility. Counting spectators, the expanded facility will post daily attendance of over 6,400.

 

All prime-time ice hours at the Schwan Super Rink are fully rented through the 2006-2007 season, which ends in March.

 

Unlike the original four rinks, which have ice twelve months a year, at least three of the four new sheets will transfer to dry land sport programming during the summer. The building was built with 32 foot high ceilings to accommodate sports like indoor soccer, lacrosse or football.

 

Future development at the facility in 2007 and 2008 will include the installation of the Herb Brooks Legacy Walk, a display of memorabilia from the iconic coach’s career, and the installation of two outdoor refrigerated sheets of ice, to be built south the new expansion. Both improvements are being built in partnership with the Herb Brooks Foundation.

 

Over 30 members and supporters of the Herb Brooks Foundation enjoyed a by-invitation first skate and rink rat hockey game on the Herb Brooks Rink Thursday night, December 14. Before the face-off, Bill Weller, Brooks’ cousin, led the group in a series of ceremonial “Herbies,” a rigorous Brooks skating workout made famous in the movie “Miracle,” in which the skaters sprint back and forth from the goal line to the blue line, back to the goal line, then to the red line, then back to the goal line.