Cracks In The Foundation

The arena you see above, with its rather impressive imagery on the front, is Arena Omsk in Omsk, Russia. The cost to build the arena that houses the KHL's Avangard Omsk team was somewhere in the range of $150 million, and construction began in March 2004 after designs by Austrian company AMR were accepted. While Avangard Omsk and MHL team Omskie Yastreby have been co-existing in the fairly-new arena since 2009, there were upgrades planned for the interior of the building that were sidetracked by a few discoveries of cracks in the walls and foundation.

From the Hawk.ru site, Avangard President Maxim Sushinsky stated,

"'Arena Omsk' is the house of the 'Vanguard', and for us it was extremely important to approach the new season in full readiness, including in terms of comfort and safety of our fans. In the off-season we started interior repairs and modernization of the engineering systems of the arena. In the course of these works, we encountered unforeseen difficulties, after which the necessary additional examinations were urgently launched. To implement these tasks, the best resources and specialists were attracted. I note that in previous years there were no complex surveys in the arena.

"At the moment, consultations and expertise are still ongoing. But since there is not much time left before the start of the season, the club must work through all the scenarios and alternatives. We will report how the situation develops."

Needless to say, Avangard Omsk may be without an arena if these "unforeseen difficulties" aren't resolved prior to the opening of the season when Lokomotiv Yaroslavl visits on September 2. Cracks in the foundation for any structure are a problem, but an arena would be catastrophic with the water getting into the cracks which would then freeze and make the cracks larger thanks to the expansive properties of frozen water. In other words, this isn't good by any measure.

If there aren't any ways to resolve these cracks in the foundation without spending millions to redo the arena floor, perhaps there's an innovative way to solve the problem. Global Synthetic Ice, a Florida-based company, makes synthetic ice surfaces that have rivalled real ice surfaces, and there seems to be a growing market for the synthetic ice. Could the KHL be the first pro league to feature a game on the synthetic ice? It's extremely unlikely, but it may solve Omsk's issue until they get the arena fixed.

This isn't the kind of news fans want to hear in the off-season, but at least Omsk found the problem and has committed to fixing it before it got any worse. Simply icing over the cracks could have made things exponentially worse! Where will the play next season if these repairs can't be finished in time for September 2? Your guess is as good as mine!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!