A rite of spring: busting ice for the county

Dan Kearns (right), rink manager for the Boys & Girls Club 

of the Berkshires, and Officer Jon Fortier (center) of the 

Berkshire County House of Correction, shovel ice out of the 

building this past week, as another ice rink season comes to a close. 

This article first appeared in The Berkshire Eagle.

By Felix Carroll

PITTSFIELD — When the Boys & Girls Club of the Berkshires first opened its improbable third floor ice rink back in 1962, the planners seemed to have thought of everything: a spacious lounge, a snack bar, and room for 800 spectators, all undergirded by beefy steel supports shouldering a slab of ice notably larger than that of Madison Square Garden’s.

Yep, they thought of everything — everything except for a drain. The ice rink has no drain.

“It’s one of the great mysteries of the Boys & Girls Club,” Dan Kearns, the rink manager, notes dryly.

Yet, had they installed a drain, it would’ve deprived Berkshire County of its most magnificent annual rites of spring — that of shoving an entire rink’s worth of ice, chunk by glorious chunk, out a third-story hole in the wall, such as occurred again this past week. 

Skaters enjoy the season’s final public skate day on March 17. 

Some 2,000 skaters in all made use of this inimitable ice rink this 

season.

By the way, if you’re in the market for more-than-gently used ice, you may want to stop by Melville St. A whole Kryptonian heap, its sharp shards gleaming, presently sits beside Conrail train tracks in a back alley canyon of bruised brick. Bring a trailer. And hurry. It’s melting.

Each year as the sun makes its mad tick or tock north from the tropics, no one seems to lament the nonexistence of a boring old drain into which a melting ice rink could simply slip away by slow degrees. Not the group of inmates from the Berkshire County House of Correction brought in each year to help bust up the ice with the promise of fresh air and hot pizza from Liberty; and not the Club itself, for whom this whole forcible dismantlement somehow proves cathartic.

A drain would be too simplistic for a rink whose well pronounced idiosyncrasies are met with equal and opposite affection. 

This is the rink that, due to a lack of a dehumidifier, turns into a veritable rain forest during winter warm spells, stalagmites mounding by the minute. And sometimes it leaks onto the basketball courts below because — yes — there are basketball courts directly below, a huge heated space just beneath an ice rink that, itself, needs to be maintained at 17 degrees.

This is the rink where two Januaries ago, when it came time to receive its new ice resurfacing machine, the Club had to hire a crane to hoist it to it’s third-story perch. That crane operator nudged it through a narrow opening in the brick all with a dexterity akin to opening a beer can using an onion hoe.

This is the rink presented to the people of Berkshire County back in December 1962, the county’s first indoor rink and our grandest Christmas gift to date. It was the girl-less Boys’ Club then, and a time when few people would have thought to put an ice rink on anything else but ground level.

Few people think to do so today, as well, by the way.

This is the Boys & Girls Club ice rink — yes, built without a drain (for some reason), but beloved just the same by some 2,000 skaters each year. It’s the home ice for hockey, figure skating, speed skating, and curling clubs, not to mention the hundreds of gold-medal fantasists endeavoring single axels during any number of the many public skate days.

Indeed, upon the end of each March, when it’s time for the Club to acquiesce to rising outdoor temperatures and shut off the rink compressors, it’s a “tear worthy” moment, admitted Ardell Arsenault, a staff member and ice guard who’s been skating here for 30-something years.

This year, six inmates from the House of Correction, all clad in matching yellows, were brought in to help do the deed. They each took two-by-fours and commenced pounding the ice, jack-hammer style, busting it into pieces. Kearns, along with Building Superintendent Kais Abderrahim, Sgt. Bruce Kruczkowski, and Officer Jon Fortier were all on hand with snow shovels to shepherd the chunks through the hole in the wall until it was all gone, three stories below — a micro, level-5 ice storm.

Chunk by chunk, Boys & Girls Club’s building 

superintendent Kais Abderrahim says goodbye 

to another ice rink season. 

Bam, bam, bam! To the retirees in the courts below playing pickleball, it all sounded like the foul mood of Nordic hockey gods above erupting into a bench clearing brawl. 

It took a full day of pounding and shoving until it was all gone, all that ice that helped make for yet another delightful Berkshire winter for those who prefer their water in the solid state.

Deposited from that three-story opening went the very ice upon which A.J. Roy, 54, of Pittsfield learned to speed skate, reaching wild-animal speeds of 25 mph on the curves by mid-January.

The very ice upon which the young Roshan Warriar completed a hat trick to lead the Berkshire Bruins Peewee Gold to victory over Bethlehem, N.Y., in the 48th Gib Kittredge Youth Hockey Tournament.

The very ice upon which Katie Malone-Smith, 40, of Hinsdale pulled off her first successful lutz since the tender age of 19.

The very ice upon which high schooler Daniella Santamarina of Pittsfield nailed down her first double jump with the Pittsfield Figure Skating Club.

The very ice upon which Bessie Reynolds, 53, of Pittsfield, weary of her own complaining about chilly Berkshire winters, strapped on skates for the first time and set off on shaky, newborn fawn legs to finally became a devoted ice skater, doggonit.

On a Friday in February, Edward LaBoursoliere, 7, of Holyoke, too, donned skates for the first time. Having fogged up the plexiglass, mesmerized by the ice resurfacing machine, he decided he wanted to be a Zamboni operator when he grows up.

And on an October day, on this very ice, a Minnesota man’s mouth was agape. Kevin Madsen, USA Curling’s lead arena ice technician, had never seen anything like this — an ice rink on a third floor. He was in town to give the Berkshire Curling Club pointers on the obscure art and science of ice surface preparation. 

“Just think,” Madsen said, “there’s about 70 tons of frozen water on that third floor.”  

But not anymore.

Not until next autumn, when Kearns and company again flick on the compressors and drag out the garden hoses. 

Before they shut it all down this week, Arsenault herself donned her red skate guard vest for the season’s final public skate, on St. Patrick’s Day. The place was packed, the music pounding, the skaters dutifully circling the rink counterclockwise. Arsenault, stern when she has to be, stepped upon the ice and scanned for improperly tied skates.

For one last time on ice whose hours were numbered, she relished the moment when she could bring all skaters to a halt. For the benefit of underused muscle groups, she had them switch direction. Clockwise we go! 

And indeed, the clock was ticking forward, the sun outside high and bright, and a tear-worthy moment forthcoming for ice angels like Arsenault, circling like water round a drain.  

Felix Carroll can be reached at felixcarroll5@gmail.com.