The ice rink at Grossinger Motors Arena is back in service after an issue postponed Friday night’s Bloomington Bison game.
Anthony Nelson, Bloomington’s director of arts and entertainment who oversees arena operations, said crews that were edging the ice following the team’s morning practice session got “too low” in some areas and brought up paint from below the playing surface.
“So when they came out to do the Zamboni, the paint was up and kind of floating in that water,” said Nelson. “Unfortunately, once it gets to that point, there's not a quick fix; you’ve kind of got to slowly start to cover that low area back up.”
Nelson said they needed to wait until ice built back up on top of the paint before a Zamboni could be used, and that couldn’t happen before the scheduled game time.
“It wasn't going to be safe for the players to skate with the paint mixed into the ice, so we had to make the call for player safety to cancel the game,” he said.
Nelson admitted crews should’ve noticed the issue sooner and not waited until shortly before game time to make the decision.
“We've made some changes to the game-day ice routine to make sure it doesn't happen again,” he said. “But unfortunately for that night, there's nothing we can do and we just have to learn from it.”
Nelson said the issue was resolved in time for the rink to host youth hockey games on Saturday, and no other upcoming events should be impacted.
A make-up date for the game between the Bison and the Indy Fuel has not been announced yet.
