Manchester Storm - Oh Dear

[Brian]

Unmitigated disaster. Standing for three hours on concourse should have been avoided at all costs . An earlier cancellation would have caused less damage to future attendances . I know it is hindsight but I would have thought after an hour it must have been pretty clear that there was a huge problem.
Can't see how this project is going to work now on so many levels.
Disappointing for everyone concerned for UK hockey. Not for the first time the league looks like a Heath Robinson affair.

[kivo1889]

Friend talking to staff in Manchester said that ice may better when it’s been down a couple of weeks. The reply was that they take the ice up when there is another event. Difficult to believe but if true then problems will remain

In a video many years ago about the pre season ice at the arena Tony Smith disparagingly referred to the new ice as just being 'frozen water' i.e. not as hard as ice that had been hacked about by skates and re-surfaced multiple times. The penny pinching AO must know this?

[smbmetal]

Official Storm club statement:

https://www.manchesterstorm.com/news/club-statement

I’m guessing refunds will be provided for those that can’t make the rescheduled game?

Good news, is they don’t have a home game until 23rd Sep, so some time to make the necessary improvements.

For me, this can’t happen again at least for the rest of this season.

[Clear The Zone]

Friend talking to staff in Manchester said that ice may better when it’s been down a couple of weeks. The reply was that they take the ice up when there is another event. Difficult to believe but if true then problems will remain

In a video many years ago about the pre season ice at the arena Tony Smith disparagingly referred to the new ice as just being 'frozen water' i.e. not as hard as ice that had been hacked about by skates and re-surfaced multiple times. The penny pinching AO must know this?

It had never occurred to me that AO's plan might have been to just re-lay the ice every week, which some people seem to be suggesting they were doing. Seems madness to me, not least because you'd also have to repaint the sponsors logos every week. Maybe they don't yet have hundreds of sheets of plywood to lay over the ice like our Arena has? Do they not have a branch of Wickes in Manchester?

[DSLSteeler]

If relaying the ice every time is what they are doing then surely this is not something that is feasible when a match immediately follows another event is it.

I have watched videos on YT about how it is done - the first layer, the painting of the lines and the goal mouths, the positioning of sponsor logos and then more ice layers on top. I imagine it is very time consuming. To attempt to do it for a 4pm face off after a gig the night before just doesn't seem do-able to me.

I can see that it would save tons of money but I can envisage constant issues with the quality of the ice. If it were that easy, other arenas would be doing the same, given how much money there is to be saved by not maintaining an ice pad constantly. It has disaster writ large all over it.

I'm not buying it - I think its false. They cant be doing that.

[DSLSteeler]

Nope, answering my own question above, according to a Google AI search, its just not possible to do it in that time frame.

Screenshot_20260915_133245_Google.jpg

[Clear The Zone]

If relaying the ice every time is what they are doing then surely this is not something that is feasible when a match immediately follows another event is it.

I have watched videos on YT about how it is done - the first layer, the painting of the lines and the goal mouths, the positioning of sponsor logos and then more ice layers on top. I imagine it is very time consuming. To attempt to do it for a 4pm face off after a gig the night before just doesn't seem do-able to me.

I can see that it would save tons of money but I can envisage constant issues with the quality of the ice. If it were that easy, other arenas would be doing the same, given how much money there is to be saved by not maintaining an ice pad constantly. It has disaster writ large all over it.

I'm not buying it - I think its false. They cant be doing that.

You never know. Maybe the arena management and staff aren't very experienced with icepads. If the only ice events they've hosted since stripping out the iceplant decades ago are Disney On Ice type events I imagine these are much less demanding in terms of ice quality. You can't imagine Pocahontas* being checked heavily into the boards very often.

*(showing my age that this is the most contemporary Disney reference I can muster)

[greeny]

If this is a one off incident , fair enough, things like this can and do happen. If however it is an incident that occurs again then that alters the situation totally and puts it into the area of [ should not of put the sport back there ]. Hopefully all is good now going forward which can only be good for the sport in general.

[Keith Sheppard]

It’s just been posted on X from hockey watch uk, that the Storm are temporarily relocating to Deeside, as the problem with the ice can’t be resolved in the near future. Hope this is not true, if it is I hope the arena gets things sorted quickly for them.

[Clear The Zone]

It’s just been posted on X from hockey watch uk, that the Storm are temporarily relocating to Deeside, as the problem with the ice can’t be resolved in the near future. Hope this is not true, if it is I hope the arena gets things sorted quickly for them.

Isn't that a joke/parody account?