Iceman ice dicey but organizers remain hopeful

The weather gods are cooperating.

Organizers of Sunday’s 37th annual Prince George Iceman are keeping their fingers crossed the winter-like weather we’re finally getting will continue this week to allow the race to go ahead as scheduled.

The biggest concern is the Exhibition Park ice oval, which has been open for only five days this winter. The weekend brought sunny but cool below-zero temperatures and volunteer ice crews waited for the ground to freeze before they started flooding again.

“I have nothing but praise for the oval (volunteers) trying to get us ice for the skate portion, said Iceman chair Julie Ubdegrove. “They are flooding, I believe, three times a day now and I was told this morning there’s a 50-50 chance we’ll get to skate.”

After weeks of flooding that started in December, the oval ice was down to dirt Friday, showing the effects of a solid week of double-digit high temperatures that turned the 400-metre rink into a lake of water.

“It’s going to be close, I am cautiously optimistic, but I tend to be one of the more optimistic and unrealistic people,” said Prince George Ice Oval Society president Kathy Lewis.

“We went down to bare ground while the thaw was happening and we had to wait to rebuild until the ground was frozen enough and now we’re starting to flood. It’s not great weather for flooding, we’d like it to get colder, but we’re flooding again, hoping we can get enough layers down to get something going for Iceman.

“If we get what (Environment Canada) says, we may be able to pull it off.”

The Iceman starts Sunday at 10 a.m. at the Otway Nordic Centre with an eight-kilometre ski, followed by a 10-kilometre run to the oval for a five-kilometre skate, then a five-kilometre run before ending with an 800-metre swim at the Prince George Aquatic Centre.

Skiers will most likely be racing on an alternate route, said Ubdegrove, due to a lack of snow on the Otway trails. Caledonia Nordic Ski Club groomers have used Otway’s artificial snowmaking capabilities to build up a 1.7-kimometre loop that will serve as the Iceman route unless there’s a big dump to cover the usual four km loop used for the race.

The unseasonably warm and dry winter has taken a bite out of Iceman registration.

As of Monday morning just 215 participants had registered, 25 of whom will compete as soloists. The rest will race on teams or junior teams. Registration closes at 11:59 p.m. Tuesday.

“This year we probably would have had more, but with the weather, people ere waiting for the last minute,” said Ubdegrove.”A lot of people didn’t want to sign up if there were two events that weren’t going to happen.”

Weather affected the 2023 Iceman, and the 330 competitors and their teams. Warm weather wiped out the skating segment.

In 2022, the pandemic was still happening and Iceman was a virtual event. COVID cancelled the 2021 race. Started in 1988 as a local event inspired by the Calgary Olympics, the only other times Iceman was cancelled was in 1996 and 2014 when it was too cold to race.

Lewis, who won the solo Iceman event at least seven times in the 1990s and early-2000s, is impressed with the city’s response to a call for volunteers willing to help with flood the oval at all hours of the day to get it ready for the race.

“I want to put a shoutout to the community for pulling together to get the ice back, even people willing to flood at six in the morning and 11 at night,” said Lewis. “Maybe on Thursday we’ll end up with round-the-clock flooding if it’s cold enough. We appreciate the way folks have come together to help us out.”

The post-race banquet will be held at the Prince George Conference and Civic Centre. Race packages will be available for pickup Saturday between 5 and 7 p.m. at the Courtyard Marriott Fraser Room at 900 Brunswick St.

Volunteers are still needed. Go to [email protected]. More information is available on the website.