Wembley’s hockey arena rebuilds its dehumidifier

The compressor failed two years ago, and the Creating Shared Value Fund covers the rebuild.

Up until this hockey season, condensation would collect on the ceiling of the FluidPro Arena and Recreation Centre in Wembley, and then drip onto the ice and freeze creating an uneven and unsafe ice surface, requiring extra maintenance and wear and tear on the Zamboni.

In any other hockey rink, a dehumidifier is what stops this from happening, but an electrical fault two years ago took out the compressor in the arena’s unit and it has not worked properly since. And beyond the ice surface, the condensation also started building up and leaking into other parts of the building this year.

Justin Pede had been watching the problems caused by the failing dehumidifier from two sides. One is as a parent with a son who has played his whole hockey career in this building, the other as vice president of the volunteer board that runs it, the Wembley & District Agricultural Society.

Earlier this year the ag society applied to the Creating Shared Value Fund for the arena dehumidifier rebuild, and found out it was one of five organizations in the region to receive funding.

A large part of the money goes to the compressor, so the dehumidifier works properly and can pull moisture out of the air.

“When you have such a large spread of cold surface, you have to manage that humidity,” Pede says. “If you don’t take that moisture out of the air, you run into water buildup, and then you’ll run into big drips and leaks.”

The humidity makes for an ice surface that isn’t ideal, but Pede thinks about it in terms of the season ahead.

“Ice quality determines the outcome of gameplay, and the kids aren’t able to play,” Pede says, adding that fixing a compressor changes an entire experience for kids and parents. “It will keep this place alive and kicking.”

Pede says this is the busiest winter the arena has seen due to an increase in regional hockey demands this year. Wembley Minor Hockey rebuilt its program to take on extra players, going from no U18 team two seasons ago to two teams in every age group this year and putting the younger groups on split ice to fit everybody in. The families coming through the doors drive in from Beaverlodge, Hythe, Horse Lake, Spirit River, and Dawson Creek.

The money that fixed the machine to ensure the quality of the ice those families are skating on comes from revenue generated at CSV Midstream Solutions’ Albright gas plant, located 20 minutes up the road.

CSV set up the Fund in 2026, and rather than budgeting a donation each year, it committed a share of what Albright earns. Corporate giving is usually the first thing companies cut when budgets come under pressure, so tying the money to the plant revenue means it keeps going back into the community for as long as Albright runs.

Rather than choosing the recipients itself, CSV handed that to a guiding committee of local residents who read the applications and make the selection, and the local community foundation, the Northwestern Alberta Foundation administers the Fund and signs off on what the committee recommends.

The letters in CSV stand for Creating Shared Value, a principle that says a company should run so the community around it benefits from the same work that makes the company money. The committee is made up of locals, which is how the money stays with the people living closest to the plant.

Jenna Hildebrand, the society’s president, says the hardest part of fundraising for the rink is asking for the money in the first place. Running the building and planning fundraisers takes all the time the six-person board has, and by the end of it there is rarely energy left to work out who to approach, where to go, and what the steps are.

Hildebrand says this one was different.

Most funding programs come with strict criteria, and Hildebrand says applicants often get asked why they had not planned for something like this, which gets defeating and exhausting for a volunteer board. The Creating Shared Value Fund let them put forward a single project they could document, so they picked one that would not need five separate quotes and Pede was able to call Amanda with NAF directly with questions and get helpful answers and support.

“For us, just being welcomed and it not feeling so daunting [was amazing],” Hildebrand says. “To be able to come and ask for things is a pretty intimidating experience, and this experience wasn’t intimidating. We are really grateful.”