Soil condition fix underway for Vauxhall arena

Posted on June 5, 2025 by Vauxhall Advance

By Nikki Jamieson
Vauxhall Advance
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The opening of the upgraded arena in Vauxhall may be delayed due to unexpected repairs.

During their regular May 20 meeting, council received an update regarding the ice arena project. 

Previously, during their May 5 meeting, council was informed crews had encountered a frost and mud issue in the arena when they were digging into the soil underneath the ice rink. While the town had a contingency fund for the project, at the time, they weren’t sure what the exact fix was, and how much it would cost.

Returning to the matter during Cris Burns’ verbal CAO report to council, he said they would be putting in a pitt run base and building up from there to resolve the issue.

“They’re putting a weeping tile system in and the pitt run base, and then the draining water bit will stay on top,” said Burns. “They’re doing a whole roll tests, like compaction tests, to make sure the mud doesn’t move.”

Burns said that he had saw them doing a bit of the testing earlier that day, with more planned the following day. However, he has “seen no movement, which is a good sign”.

However, as a result, this does mean that they would need to use up the contingency fund for the project, which pushed up the total project cost. While there was an $80,000 contingency fund, the repairs involving the weeping tile system and pitt run installation would “push our project pretty much to the peak of the contingency”. As this would leave the town without any contingency fund for the project should something else happen not according to plan, Burns said it was recommended that they not do any Zamboni room upgrades for the time being, and use the funds slated for that as their new contingency.

Mayor Kimberly Cawley asked if this meant they would be delayed in opening the rink this fall, which Burns confirmed.

“We may be delayed. That’s the one thing I think may be a for sure. The hockey rink may be delayed a bit, the curling rink may be delayed longer, because we haven’t started (work on it) because we were panicked about this soil condition.”