Repairs near completion after fire forced WFCU rink shutdown

Crews have been working to repair damage caused by a fire at the WFCU Centre last April. CTV Windsor's Bob Bellacicco explains the process.

Crews have been working to repair damage caused by a fire at the WFCU Centre last April.

The rooftop blaze destroyed solar panels, damaged the roof, and left the AM800 Community Rink out of service.

After months of repairs, the facility is nearing a return to action.

“We’re excited about it,” said curling advocate Terry Fink. “The hockey will move into that, which frees up the Capri Center for us now to return to curling after a whole year of no curling.”

After 14 months off, the trick now is re-establishing the sport at the Capri Pizzeria Recreation Complex where its second season was cut short, a year after being relocated from Roseland.

“We want all those curlers who didn’t curl last year to come back and curl,” Fink told CTV News. “We’re certainly looking at developing the sport. There’s room for new curlers to come on board, learn how to curl, get into a league and have the social fun and the fun of the sport. So we’re looking at bringing that all together.”

No water is infiltrating the building as the AM800 rink is repaired. The only thing missing from that part of the roof are the solar panels.

Some lights inside the rink were damaged.

“We replaced all the lights on this rink. So we have 24 brand new lights, LED lights that are programable,” said Cory Elliott, manager of arenas.

He points out the city normally takes ice out of the rinks during the summer months and will be closing the Green Shield rink this year.

That is convenient because there might still be work needed to the low-e, or low emission, ceiling in that rink. The ceiling is designed to reduce heat transfer by reflecting radiant heat.

“We just got the report yesterday so we just need to go through it and see exactly what work needs to be done, or whether it can be done during normal office building hours. And to make sure that we don’t have to cancel any of those,” said Elliott.

With critical work complete, the city anticipates normal arena operations to continue this summer with the AM800 and Corporal Grenon rinks while exterior roof work continues in the background.

Things should be back to normal this fall.

“We’ll have all the ice back as of Labor Day,” Elliott said. “We can’t wait to get this going.”