Lyle Dickieson knows a lot about outdoor ice ovals.
As one of the primary ice builders of the oval at Exhibition Park, he not only takes care of the rink but also skates on it just about every day.
That internal engine he's developed to make him fast on his blades took him back to the top of the national medal podium last weekend at the Canadian masters (30 years and older) long track speed skating championships in Halifax. Dickieson won the 50-55-year-old men's title and was fifth overall, a precursor event in the lead-up to the 2011 Canada Winter Games in Halifax later this month.
Dickieson, who first captured the national title in 2008 in Calgary, was unable to attend last year's masters championships due to knee and hernia injuries that required surgery. His success at this year's event proves his recovery in now complete.
"I was very happy, I held my own," said Dickieson. "It's my second time around to win that, so I was really happy with that.
"I went to a race in Fort St. John a couple weeks ago and that felt pretty good, so at the last minute I decided to give it a try out east. "
Dickieson celebrated his 55th birthday on Friday and the next day started his masters races. He placed first in the 1,000-, 1,500-, and 3,000-metre events and was second in the 500.
Rainstorms a week ago in Halifax left the ice in less than pristine shape, and conditions over the weekend were snowy and windy at times, but Dickieson wasn't complaining.
"It's outdoor artificial ice there and the ice was pretty slow, everybody's times were slow, but with the artificial ice there they were able to recover from the storms," said Dickieson. "They put the refrigeration pipes into sand and, certainly, if they hadn't had refrigeration they would have had to cancel the whole thing.
"For me, the slow ice was a bit of an advantage, especially when I was competing against some of the guys from Calgary who train indoors all the time on real fast ice. They had to work a little harder on slow ice and I'm kind of better at long distance endurance races and I'm certainly used to skating outside."
Halifax speed skaters have come out in droves to try out the new oval and Dickieson said they want to make permanent what is supposed to be a temporary facility.
"They're getting just huge usage -- they can take 500 people for public skates and they're turning people away," he said.
"Haligonians rarely get to skate on outdoor ice, so to have something like that, almost right downtown, has been a big hit and they're trying hard to save it."
Prince George will host the 2015 Canada Winter Games and Dickieson said the city should look into the feasibility of using the ice plant of the adjacent Kin Centre to provide weatherproof artificial ice. Early estimates of the cost of refrigeration for the oval range from about $3 million for temporary ice to $6 million for a permanent structure.
"Hopefully we can learn from their enthusiasm and get some artificial ice here," he said. "We're lucky here that Mother Nature co-operates most of the time, but those dry spells like at Christmas, when it went up to 7 C, that causes us lots of maintenance issues."
Dickieson didn't have to look hard in Halifax to find evidence of the Games, which run Feb. 11-27, and he's looking forward to seeing Prince George take the national spotlight in 2015.
"There are lots of billboards and the skating oval is considered the crown jewel of all the Games infrastructure," said Dickieson. "The Games here will be terrific and it will be a big boost to this community."
n The Blizzard club hosts informal adult masters recreational long blade training sessions Saturday and Sundays from 10 a.m.-noon. The sessions are open to all adults.
