Work to repair fire damaged WFCU Centre rink ‘challenging but on schedule’

Fire on the roof of the WFCU Centre in Windsor, Ont., on Monday, April 28, 2025. (Bob Bellacicco/CTV News Windsor)

Windsor’s commissioner of community services says work to restore one of the fire-damaged rinks at the WFCU Centre ‘has been challenging, but everything is still on schedule.’

Michael Chantler said there is extensive scaffolding inside the AM800 rink to allow the crews to do this work.

“It’s not a new build where you would have a proper order of construction in a project that would make it easy to get to the places where you need to get to do the work,” he said.

“It’s just not like that when you have a completed building now that has had this kind of damage.”

On April 28, a fire at the east end complex on 8787 McHugh Street tore through the roof above the AM800 community rink, causing an estimated $1 million in damage.

The water used to extinguish the fire also seeped into the insulation, affecting the adjacent GreenShield and Corporal Andrew Grennon community rinks.

The air handling units were also impacted, which resulted in some mold issues over the hot summer months.

Chantler said it’s been like ‘peeling back an onion’ in doing the exploring of the damage and doing the repairs.

“It’s the membrane, it’s the insulation, it’s the steel structure because of the heat of the fire, so it was extensive. It was more extensive than we first thought,” he said.

“The good news is that the materials are coming in and they’re getting to work on it. So far, so good; we’re on schedule with what we thought it would take.”

The fire forced the city to make changes to the ice time schedule, moving user groups around to other arenas across Windsor and removing curling from the Capri Pizzeria Recreation Complex to help accommodate all the groups.

Chantler said they expect the repairs to the AM800 rink to be finished by late spring-early summer so they can move on to repairs above the other community ice pads and have everything completed in time for the 2026 fall schedule.