Yeah. I'm not really sure what you do. If you realize that it's a problem that you can't engineer your way out of, at some point...maybe you
do have to consider that in what sort of team you're striving to build. Though generally speaking...it's not like size isn't already at a premium anyway. And you're still stuck with half the time...you might be going to other rinks that play a lot crisper and faster, where teams that have oodles of speed and boatloads of skill are still going to stunt on you if you're not fast enough. It just seems like a particularly poor fit to have bad ice + the sort of small, skilled team that we broadly have here.
The temperature fluctuations are definitely a killer. But everything i've heard and understood about icemaking, is that it's often really the humidity that causes the biggest problems. It also has a bit of a compounding effect with temperature swings, in that at higher humidity levels, it becomes really difficult to control what that moisture in the air is doing to the ice surface. When you get warm and fluctuating temperature, moisture laden air circulating through the building meeting cold frozen water (aka Ice) it does weird and generally deleterious things to the quality and composition of that ice surface. You get weird condensation and unintended freeze/thaw stuff happening, which isn't great. It's the opposite of when you step into one of those old (literal) barns and immediately get a nosebleed - at least you know the ice is going to be good.
So yeah, getting the temperature of the building right is just one part of it...and in a lot of ways, the easier component. Places like Dallas or Vegas can do alright in that regard because cooling a big building in a hot dry climate is just a matter of incorporating enough cooling capacity and blasting the AC all day (which also helps dry things even more).
That was also a big part of Edmonton's secret for a long time. It's a relatively dry place through most of the hockey season. Though like you said, the duration of the season and climate change have that shifting. Their other ace in the hole was their head ice tech who was a bit of a legend, but i believe the NHL actually poached him to work on all of their various projects and the Oilers ice started to fall off a little bit at that point. But that was quite a while ago and all in the old building anyway. Still...their new building seems to consistently have much better ice than most, and especially compared to Vancouver.
But even places like the Florida teams, Carolina, Nashville, even Boston...you can't tell me they don't have temperature swings
and all sorts of humidity problems to contend with. Yet most still seem like they've moved past Vancouver in managing it.
Rogers Arena is a bit unique in that it
is an old building at this point, albeit pretty extensively renovated and overhauled. Plus, the situation where it's just wedged right in there and has all sorts of new towers and things growing out of it and whatnot. That all certainly complicates any sort of thermal management, and humidity control as well. You get a whole bunch of other factors affecting the thermal management and humidity of the building that also fluctuate with occupancy coming and going beyond just...the obvious normal loading of people filing in to watch the hockey game. Or various concerts, events, or whatever else. I'm sure it's an insanely complicated issue. But it'd be really nice if they could resolve it...or at least improve the situation somewhat.
Because the main underlying point is...i concur with the final point there. It's a shame to have all this talent, and not give them consistently good ice where they can truly put on a show with skill and speed in front of the home crowd...because the ice is slow and the puck is bouncing around like a tennis ball. It's kind of embarrassing, and it has been for a while now. Particularly every spring.
Plan the parade.
