Rink

THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE How Maple Grove Community Center navigated a complex expansion to bring a vital new ice sheet to a booming community PROJECT IN PICTURES by James Beckius M aple Grove is the Northwest cornerstone of the Twin Cities and has become a haven for shopping and recreation for the outer ring suburbs. The city of Maple Grove has seen healthy and consistent growth over the last decade plus and with that the needs of the community have grown. The local youth hockey organization continues to expand leading to the need for more ice availability. Due to these factors, it was decided to improve city offerings with an expanded and refreshed Maple Grove Community Center, and with that an additional sheet of ice. While the project in its entirety is large and includes every aspect of the Maple Grove Community Center, the goal for the arena portion was to meet the needs of our local hockey organization, Osseo-Maple Grove Hockey Association, by providing a quality ice sheet youth teams to utilize throughout the year. The new Trustone rink provides an NHL sized sheet of ice with five locker rooms and supports our local hockey organization as well as AAA teams and local recreational hockey players and skaters. As with any project there were plenty of challenges in the process including shifting deadlines, communication problems, weather issues including water penetration and the difficulty of proceeding with operations while construction continued to progress. The ice sheet saw its first use on January 2 and the rest of the building opened in mid-March, just in time for the USA Hockey High School National Championships that the city cohosted with Plymouth, Minnesota. Reactions have been great and the users of our arena have been very pleased with the results. J 42 / JULY.AUGUST.2026 USICERINKS.COM Arena outside view

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