BLAINE, Minn. – (Dec. 8, 2016) – The ice arena at Centennial High School will be seeing a big improvement for next year’s hockey season. They were awarded a grant from the Minnesota Amateur Sports Commission under the James Metzen Mighty Ducks Ice Arena Grant Program. The grants were awarded to assist Minnesota communities in improving indoor air quality in ice arenas.
“This year, the Mighty Ducks grant was specifically for air quality improvement, which was right up our alley,” said Centennial Ice Arena manager Nick Droogsma. “Our current ice machine is just over 20 years old, and it has the equivalent of 400,000 miles on it, to a car.”
“To keep your air quality where you need it to be can be tough at times, so it was a great opportunity for us to improve our air quality by getting a new Zamboni.”
All of the grants awarded required matching dollars, so Centennial will be paying for the other half of the of the cost.
“We asked for $82,500 and they gave us the full amount. That essentially covers half of the cost of our project.” said Droogsma.
The new Zamboni will produce less pollution and cleaning air throughout the arena.
“It doesn’t have an internal combustion engine. It’s electric,” said Droogsma. “With the electric Zamboni, there are no fumes. So, it’s a much safer environment. No carbon dioxide and no nitrogren dioxide.”
Centennial High School received one of the 29 grants that were given out this year.
