7th December 2009
HOW DO THEY INSTALL A TEMPORARY ICE RINK?
A local team of events specialists will begin
the installation of the Sure Skate rink at Fort Regent next
week.
The Sure Skate rink, which will begin to appear
from 14th December, will take a team of five approximately two days
to complete, leaving islanders with a 35 x 18 metre pool of 67,000
litres of frozen water to have fun on this winter.
“Many people are intrigued to know how we do
it,” said Keith Halstead of Arrow Electrics. “It is a slow process
but a very precise process which has to be carried out very
accurately to ensure the ice remains in the best condition for the
duration of the rink’s life.”
Arrow Electrics, a specialist generator and
mains distribution company which focuses on the events industry,
has constructed all of the ice rinks which Kyran Bracken has
managed in Jersey.
“We will start laying plastic floor mats which
will then be filled with an anti-freeze water solution, creating a
cold radiator which will be maintained at -12 degrees centigrade
under the ice. We then spray water onto the surface, filling it a
few millimetres deep before letting it freeze and then spraying it
again. This process will be repeated over three days until a layer
of about 4in of ice is created,” added Mr Halstead.
Sure Skate is being organised in conjunction
with Kyran Bracken’s Ice Party and sponsors Sure and Nokia Siemens
Networks. Since his win on the popular ITV1 show in 2007, Kyran has
toured the country performing to thousands of skating fans in his
own show, Kyran Bracken’s Ice Party. Earlier this summer, Kyran’s
Ice Party visited Jersey alongside the Sure sponsored Kyran Bracken
Skate School.
Nokia Siemens Networks has teamed up with Sure
as part of a joint promotion to drive increased data usage,
following Nokia Siemens Networks’ recent upgrade of Sure’s 3G
network in Jersey and the launch of 3G services in Guernsey earlier
this month.
Islanders will be encouraged to take their
photos on the islands’ skate rinks and MMS these to the Sure Skate
web site, set up especially for the purpose. The best photos will
win a Nokia 5630 Xpress Music handset. More details and full terms
and conditions are available at
http://www.sureskate.com/ice/page-299.
The Sure Skate ice rink will be open from 18th
December with the final day of skating on 3rd January at Fort
Regent, Jersey.