Sustainable hardware. Image: Eamon Devlin
By Eamon Devlin
Just as it is getting warm, the biggest ice hockey games of the year are being played: The battle for the National Hockey League (NHL) Stanley Cup is well underway.
I’ve played hockey all my life. And as this temperature irony sets in, so too is the realization that hockey rinks are a huge draw on natural resources.
For instance, a single sheet of ice requires about 12,500 gallons of water. And every game requires about 247,746 gallons of water for a variety of uses, according to the NHL’s sustainability report.
Think about a typical ice rink and all the energy and resources it requires. There is the need for lighting, restrooms, locker rooms, concessions, heating, cooling and obviously the ice. The NHL has been working to reduce its environmental impact. Many of the same efforts can also be implemented at your local rink.
Saint Paul RiverCentre, home of the Wild.
Spend some time searching the web and you’ll quickly find that the NHL is the only major sports league to release a sustainability report. That report is “the single most important document about the environment ever produced by a professional sports organization,” said Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
All this sounds great, but what is sustainability?
Sustainability takes into account “the economics, the environment and equity of actions both in the short term as well as the long term,” said Matt Raven, a professor of sustainability at Michigan State University. A process is truly sustainable if it doesn’t draw more resources than what can be replaced.
Professional hockey teams are approaching sustainability from a variety of angles, said Omar Mitchell, the NHL’s director of sustainability. Some have installed a system similar to an anaerobic digester, more efficient lighting and even onsite renewable energy sources like solar panels and geothermal. Other teams have focused on educating local communities on their environmental impacts, he said.
The root of hockey has strong ties to environmental concerns, Mitchell said. Many players within the league grew up playing on frozen ponds and honor that tradition with outdoor games. Issues like a warming planet and water scarcity threaten the ability for that to continue, so the league needs to do everything it can to help prevent or mitigate these problems, he said.
The league measures how teams are impact the environment and the ways they’ve discovered to reduce that impact. In 2012-2013, the league reduced its carbon dioxide emissions from the previous year by 147,980 metric tons, according to the report. That is the same as the carbon dioxide emissions caused by 20,355 homes, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
More reductions are coming.
The goal is to create these reports every two to three years, Mitchell said. Future focuses include improving the arenas themselves. Seventy-five percent of their carbon emissions are because of electricity consumption.
Recycling and composting efforts of the Minnesota Wild. Image: Saint Paul RiverCentre
The Minnesota Wild is one team among many already tackling that issue.
The team meters all of its energy consumption in the complex, said Jim Ibister, general manager of the Saint Paul RiverCentre, site of the Wild’s home rink. Managers can see where energy consumption is occurring and figure out why it’s spiking or soaring, he said. This has led to finding new ways to improve energy efficiency.
Sustainability efforts for hockey organizations go beyond just energy. The Wild instituted a trash-handling program called “50-50 in 2.” It aimed to reduce trash by half and increase recycling rates by 50 percent in two years, Ibister said. This initiative was hugely successful, surpassing both expectations in a smaller period of time.
The newest program is 80-20 in 3, which aims to decrease emissions of carbon compounds, their carbon footprint, by 80 percent and increase efficiency 20 percent in three years, he said.
Because of initiatives like this, the St. Paul RiverCentre is the first hockey venue to become certified by three separate sustainability programs, including by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program better known as LEED, he said.
“These certifications weren’t the goal, they are just milestones,” Ibister said. The team wants to continue to become more sustainable and serve as an example to other organizations and arenas.
This includes local rinks. The rink at the Farmington Hills Hockey Arena that I grew up playing on has implemented similar systems. The rink has put in new pumps that only use the exact amount of brine required to keep the ice cold, said Brian Moran, manger at the Farmington Hills Hockey Arena. It also installed a computer monitoring system to control and regulate temperature and lights. The lights have also been upgraded to more energy efficient models.
Overall the NHL is having success becoming more sustainable. Each team may have its own way of doing so, but together they make a difference and serve as models for rinks nationwide.
So which NHL team is most sustainable? While they battle on the ice for who will raise the Stanley Cup as the best hockey team, Echo is pitting those from the Greater Great Lakes Region against each other in what we’ve called the Eco Cup playoffs.
The winner earns recognition as the best eco-sustainability hockey team in the Great Lakes region this year. We’ve placed the teams against one-another based on geographical location. You can help pick the winner.
And just for fun, grab this bracket and pick which team you think is the most sustainable of each pair.
Echo Eco Cup bracket. Image: Eamon Devlin
There is a larger one here.
Every week we will reveal summaries of sustainability reports for two teams in the matches. You can help decide winners in each of three rounds by advocating for them in the comments and by voting between the two.
We’ll make the calls.
Winners advance to the next round until we have a champion!
Watch for the first matchup Wednesday: The Chicago Blackhawks vs the Minnesota Wild.