Paul has surface matters in hand
Paul Martin welcomed in the new year by making sure his Dewars Centre ice was in tip-top shape.
The ice hall manager spent hours on Hogmanay and New Year’s Day preparing for the Mercure City of Perth Masters.
When action swept into life last night, Paul was pleased with the condition of the surface as world-class curlers went head to head.
“Preparation for the event went well,”he explained to the PA.
“We were in on January 1 to put one flood on and then back the following day to put two more floods on.
“Everything looks good and the ice does look like it has just been made.
“I spent four hours on Hogmanay scraping the ice back to get it level and Paul has been putting in the hours to get the ice at Dewars ready bright, so you could see all of the seems to be curling away nicely.” markings. Paul will be keeping a close eye on “We had two sessions of club curling ice conditions across the weekend as on Wednesday to break the ice in. It the event heads towards a Sunday finish.
“We have a surface probe on the centre of the ice and I will check that every half hour or hour,”he said.
“You want to keep the ice consistent without spiking up to different temperatures.
“If you can maintain a surface temperature between -4.5 and -5 during a two hour game then you are doing well.
“You can never get perfect ice but you can always try your hardest to maintain it.
“At the end of the weekend the ice should be pretty close to how it started from the beginning of the event.
“That is what we are trying to do keep it as consistent as we possibly can for these guys.
“It’s exciting. You know all of the faces and a lot of them from when they were juniors.”