skate at The Emera Oval

Residents of and visitors to HRM once again have the opportunity to experience The Emera Oval...

• The Emera Oval will be open to the general public 7 days a week.
• Regardless of your skating ability, there will be something for everyone both on and off the ice, from daily skating activities to winter festival events.
• There will be a full complement of free public recreation programs Skating for Schools, Learn to Skate programs, speed skating clinics
• Special events will include: holiday skating events, a winter skating festival, weekly themed events, and major special events.

The Emera Oval

Cool Facts

• Largest outdoor, artificially-refrigerated ice surface east of Quebec City

• An ice surface equivalent to 3 NHL hockey rinks

• The ice surface can accommodate up to 1500 skaters at a time

• 6 refrigeration units making it possible to skate in temperatures of up to 10 degrees Celsius

• There is approx 450,000 linear feet (85 miles) of piping used to create the oval

• Refrigeration design will be able to hold ice above 50 F (+10 C) depending on wind and solar exposure

• The Emera Oval will have approx 55,000 sqft of ice area. (This is more than three full size NHL ice rinks)

• Ice will be approx 2" thick above the pipes

• Initial ice making will take about 250,000 litres of waterIce will be resurfaced using an Olympia ice resurfacer with a laser leveller and a laser edger

• It will take approximately 60 minutes to resurface the ice, using approx. 1700 litres per flood, and is usually done after 2 hours of skating.

• (6) packaged air cooled chillers each delivering 80 tons of cooling for a combined total of 480 tons of cooling. The packaged air cooled chillers use environmentally friendly R410a refrigerant and consume no water in the condensing process.

• Environmental: 100% recovery of the glycol solution used for the oval, rink floor piping and rink floor insulation is reuseable post games.

Media Coverage

Metro- August 5, 2010- Short-term oval for long-track skaters

Chronicle Herald - August 15, 2010 - Workers to start on speed skating oval

Chronicle Herald - September 8, 2010 - Work on skating oval starts this week

Metro - September 9, 2010 - Oval work starts today

Metro - March 29, 2011- Council votes to make skating oval permanent

Chronicle Herald - March 30, 2011 - Oval will be here a long time

Chronicle Herald - August 24, 2011 - Oval a chance to make Halifax a hotbed of skating

 

The Halifax Common

Throughout the history of the Halifax Common it has been used for a wide variety of recreational and cultural pursuits - from horse and car racing to military encampments, native powwow’s, concerts, circuses and fairs. Traditionally, these activities have taken place in the May to October time frame, however hosting the Canada Winter Games in February 2011 facilitated a unique opportunity for winter activities held in this public common area.