Sports
Questioning Safety From The Stands
Glass height differences at the Maple Grove Community Center's ice arena propelled one resident to question spectator safety during hockey games.
After injuries to two Twin Cities prep hockey players, Minnesotans know that ice hockey can be a dangerous sport.
But Maple Grove resident Dave Cobb is weary of hockey even if he’s only sitting in the stands. That’s because in 2010, Cobb was struck by a flying puck while watching a Crimson boys hockey game at the . Cobb left the ice rink with a broken nose.
After his injury, Cobb began to wonder about the measures taken to keep spectators safe at ice rinks.
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“I was at the community center watching my son play Mites hockey, and we were watching the high school boys scrimmage in between periods, so I was sitting in a crowd of kindergartners,” Cobb said, recalling the event. “The puck could have hit any of those kids. I’m glad it didn’t.”
Cobb and his wife wrote the community center and asked about rink safety, though nothing has changed at the ice arena.
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Frank Weber, operations supervisor for the community center, said that he remembers the incident where Cobb was injured.
“I’ve been working [at the community center] for 15 years, and I can only remember one or two other instances where someone was hit,” Weber said. “It’s very rare, but it does happen.”
When Cobb was injured, he was at the older of the two community center rinks. Built in 1996, the old rink has four feet of glass that wrap the side walls and eight feet of glass that protect each end. But the new rink, built in 2008, is lined with six feet of glass all the way around.
“The construction of the old rink met the ice rink standard of that time,” Weber said.
Cobb’s incident pushed Weber and the community center staff to relook at their rink’s safety. When representatives from The League of Minnesota Cities examined the ice arena, they said the glass heights met industry standards.
According to the International Ice Hockey Federation, protective glass should be 120 centimeters in height along each side of the rink, or roughly four feet. By these standards, the community center’s old ice rink is in compliance.
“I tell people that when they enter an ice arena, they need to pay attention to what’s happening on the ice,” Weber said. “Accidents do happen. That’s why we post signs that say ‘watch for flying pucks.’”
Today, Cobb is careful when he enters an ice arena.
“I think the standards are lax when it comes to glass height," Cobb said. "Because of that, now, I always watch the puck.”
