Equipment Issue at Arena

The Patriot Ice Center has informed us that there is an equipment issue that is forcing them to shift some of the schedule around. So there will be no curling on the first league night of the 2026 New Year League, Sunday January 11th. Therefore the first game of the New Year League will be played on January 18th.

For those who tried to curl with us over the summer, this sounds hauntingly familiar. Over the summer the compressor that cools the rink we play on, the Olympic rink, went down. It took a while to replace and we ended up having to cancel our entire summer schedule.

I would like to assure everyone that this should not be the case this time around. There are several reasons why we can expect a quicker response and less impact to our club than with the equipment failure over the summer. (1) We are in peak hockey tournament season, even if they completely cancelled our schedule to use the Olympic rink exclusively for hockey it would be a substantial disruption. During the summer the schedule is much lighter and most events could be covered utilizing just the NHL rink. (2) The equipment that failed this time services the rink we do not play on, the NHL rink, which does not have curling markings. (3) The equipment failure over the summer was the first one under the new ownership, no better teacher than experience. (4) In addition to a full on replacement of equipment, the arena is pursuing a short term rental of replacement equipment to bridge the gap. (5) This happened before the New Year and the arena has already started working on the issue. (6) The arena management has already expressed they intend to keep our second league night, January 18th, as planned.

On the website you may notice we’ve preliminarily added a Sunday to the end of our previous league schedule to make up the cancelled day. This is currently a placeholder. Once we have confirmation from the arena that no more dates will be cancelled, and we confirm what makeup dates may be available, we will poll everyone in the league to see how many people would be able to attend the makeup dates. If we can schedule makeup dates after all that, great, the New Year League will still be an 8 week league. If not we will give everyone the option of a credit or reimbursement for the missed night.

Registration will continue to be open until we get on the ice, so maybe we can pick up a few extra players. See everyone soon!


Good Curling!

Brian Hufe

Vice President