Former Anchorage Assembly member and co-owner of the Alaska Aces professional hockey team, Dan Coffey is worried about the machine that makes ice at Sullivan Arena, where his team plays its home games. Coffey wants the Assembly to break its deadlock over a proposal to build indoor tennis courts because the stalemate has delayed repairs to an aging Sullivan Arena ice-making machine.
"Where should we move the Aces?" Coffey yelled out to several Assembly members after the last meeting -- a meeting that ended without a decision about whether to build tennis courts or spend much of the $10.5 million appropriation to fix local arenas. He added later that he's worried the Sullivan Arena ice plant may soon fail.
"If it went down we would probably be out of business, that's why I was so damn mad," Coffey said.
Alaska's biggest hockey arena
No other ice arena in Alaska seats nearly as many people as Sullivan Arena, which holds about 6,500 for hockey. The Ben Boeke Ice Arena, next door, can fit only 1,000 fans. Even the Curtis Menard Center, in Wasilla, with its 1,500 seating capacity, couldn't handle the crowds of more than 4,000 that typically show up for Aces games.
Money to replace the aging ice-making plant at the Sullivan Arena and other Anchorage-owned sports complexes is being held up by months of debate over proposed indoor tennis courts. The money to build the Northern Lights Rec Center -- planned to house six indoor tennis courts and two basketball half-courts -- was sent to the Anchorage Assembly by the Alaska Legislature in April as part of the city's capital improvement project funds. Money for tennis courts may mean less money available to fix various Anchorage rinks, and the matter has been caught up in controversy and months of failed compromises without resolution.
Some $10.5 million of the legislature's $37 million dollar appropriation to Anchorage this year was originally destined for the tennis project, but the money -- along with the idea of using public funds to build an indoor tennis facility -- has been mired in debate over whether lawmakers knew what they were voting on when they approved it. Some Anchorage Assembly members want to set aside $4 million for tennis courts -- and have the remaining $3.2 to $6 million needed to build the courts decided on by voters in the April municipal election.
Assemblywoman Amy Demboski said she has asked for reconsideration of that plan -- which is a modification of an ordinance proposed by Assembly member Bill Starr that failed by a 5-6 vote on Dec. 3. Demboski said she reconsidered her position on the ordinance after hearing from Anchorage Parks and Recreation Director John Rodda. Rodda is charged with planning for the replacement of outdated ice-making plants at the Sullivan Arena, Ben Boeke Ice Arena, Dempsey-Anderson Ice Arena and the Harry MacDonald Center. Those plans are at the mercy of the Assembly, which continues to fight over what, if any, part of the legislature's appropriation should go to building tennis courts.
"We are quite behind the curve at this point for making the decisions," Rodda said.
Sullivan Arena opened its doors in 1983. The arena has a seating capacity of more than 6,200 people for hockey and is the only venue in Southcentral Alaska that can hold the team's rabid cadre of fans. Two Kelly Cups -- the ECHL league championship -- and stints on the roster by Anchorage's NHL star Scotty Gomez have boosted the team's popularity in recent years. Coffey has warned the Assembly that if the machine that makes ice for the Sullivan Arena breaks, it could cost the team dearly.
"If a team comes up here to play and we don't play, you know, they get here on a Friday and we were supposed to play on Saturday, it's going to cost us $100,000 for every game we don't play," Coffey said.
Like all Anchorage sports arenas, the machine that makes ice at the Sullivan Arena is freon-based -- a technology that is being phased out because of concerns about the gas's contributions to global warming. The ice plant is 30 years old and has broken down at least once, in September of 2012 when pipes beneath the Sullivan Arena floor ruptured. Freon-based refrigeration systems generally have an expected life of about 20 years. The pipes beneath the Sullivan Arena floor were fixed in time for Aces and University of Alaska Anchorage hockey games to go ahead as scheduled. But a complete replacement is a job that could take five months, a period during which the hockey rink could not be used.
'We just can't afford that'
Rodda doesn't believe the Sullivan Arena's ice plant will go down before it can be replaced, possibly in the summer of 2015. And he thinks any problem that arises could be fixed with short-term repairs that don't entail a long-term shutdown of Sullivan Arena's rink. "We are not going to let that happen," Rodda said.
Coffey isn't so confident. If a breakdown could not be fixed within a few weeks, Coffey said, the season would be in jeopardy. "We just can't afford that; we just can't. We would have to shut down," Coffey said of the Aces.
Aces fans gathered recently at a local bar to watch a telecast as the team finished a 20-day road trip decried the current tennis-ice plant boondoggle.
"If we lose the Alaska Aces for a game, a season, or altogether, my wallet will go towards the opponents of every current Assembly member," Jack Willis, an eight-year Aces season ticketholder said.
Contact Sean Doogan at sean(at)alaskadispatch.com