Superior Ice, at Superior Ice Rink

In 1972, the McGuigan family opened the Superior Ice Rink in King's Park, NY. Arena Manager Ryan Hobby is the third generation to take the helm of the Long Island single-pad. In October of this year, he installed a REALice water conditioning system to get the arena away from the traditional hot water floods that have been contributing to high energy costs.

What they're also seeing is better ice compared to what they produced before.

"We never had bad ice in the past," says Hobby. "It's just that REALice makes it so much better."

Recovering Faster

Those words are echoed by his maintenance and operations team, like Dennis Flood who started skating there when he was two "and never really left!". Flood also played some Junior "A" hockey in Manitoba around 20 years ago.

"I think the ice is much better, much better," says Flood who does maintenance at the rink. "I also think the ice is recovering faster, if that makes any sense. The temperature of the ice is warmer, it's drying evenly... I like it. I see a little difference, but we see the ice every day, so if there's the smallest difference, we notice it."

"I think we nailed it," says Flood.

Testimonials

Hobby had been considering purchasing REALice for a couple of years but a couple of testimonial videos from senior operators actually helped him decide.

"Those guys have seen it all," Hobby explains. "So when they get excited about a different way to maintain the ice, you've got to take note."

Incentives

Superior Ice Rink benefitted from utility incentives from both National Grid ( Laura McNeill , Lead Channel Representative) and PSEG Long Island LLC ( Doug Cahill , Senior Energy Consultant) which reduced the rink's simple payback down to two years. The calculated energy savings are just over 4,000 Therms of natural gas, over 81,000 kWh of electricity -- and 54 metric tons of CO2 emissions -- compared to flooding with 150°F hot water. The rink is now using 80°F floodwater, and has move their ice temperature up by 2°F already.

"We haven't gotten really cold yet, so we may still go up (higher still)," Hobby explains.

Hobby says with both NationalGrid and PSEG Long Island offering incentives, it was hard to say, "No".

"We're a private rink and like everyone, we're seeing higher costs and want to do something about them. The REALice installation was a quick install and we started to see the differences right away."

"REALice is the real deal!"