The ever-busy schedule of AMSOIL Arena

On Friday and Saturday nights when the Bulldogs aren’t in town, the lights are still on at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center and Amsoil Arena, the former home and the new home, respectively, of UMD hockey. These facilities, which are adjacent to each other, have housed the Bulldogs since 1966.

Gabby Hughes (17) chases a loose puck against Ohio State on Friday, Feb. 7 at Amsoil Arena. Photo by Drew Smith

On Jan. 31 and Feb. 1 (when the Bulldogs were on the road), Amsoil Arena and the DECC Arena hosted the Northland Figure Skating Competition.According to the Duluth Figure Skating website, “the competition brings in 500 competitors from across Minnesota, Wisconsin, North and South Dakota, Michigan, and Canada.” Among those in the crowd watching was Carol Brimhall from Fergus Falls, Minn.

“I’ve been coming here for years to watch hockey and for youth conferences,” Brimhall said. “Duluth is the best place to come for youth conferences, with all facilities, hotels and the lake. We always played at the DECC, but Amsoil is very nice.”

According to the City of Duluth, the city has eight pleasure skating rinks. In addition, the city only has six indoor sheets of ice, making ice time a hot commodity in Duluth during the months of November through February. Nick Bryant, director of hockey operations for the UMD women’s hockey team, is always dealing with this challenge.

“While it doesn’t happen often there are times where, once, maybe twice during the season where we get displaced because of concerts or other things like that at Amsoil Arena and the DECC is unavailable,” Bryant said. “Sometimes it comes down to finding ice elsewhere in Duluth, more often than not the Heritage Center.” Bryant also noted there are times where they need to secure more ice for goalie practices, skills sessions or for injured players who still want to skate away beyond the team practices.

This year, there have been some switches in practice times, which has opened more ice time for Amsoil Arena to sell. In the fall, the women’s team practiced from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. and then switched to 12:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. in the spring.

“The switch to the earlier mornings in the fall has been awesome for us,” Bryant said. Before this, Amsoil couldn’t sell ice until 6:30 p.m., when most youth teams are looking to practice around 4 p.m. or 5 p.m., as the women’s team practiced around 3:30 p.m. last year.

Ryder Donovan (22) scores the game winner for Duluth East High School against Andover High School in overtime at the Minnesota State High School League 7AA boys’ hockey section finals on Feb. 28, 2019 at Amsoil Arena. Photo by Drew Smith

On Feb. 22, Amsoil Arena will host the Minnesota State High School Section 7A and 7AA boys’ hockey semifinals. The day features four high school hockey games, but it comes at the cost of splitting up a home series for the UMD women’s team. Puck drop for the UMD-Wisconsin game will be at 7 p.m. on Feb. 21 and 2 p.m. on Feb. 23. In a typical series, the rematch game would start at 3 p.m. or 4 p.m. on a Saturday.

“This is the first year we’ve had to move our game,” Bryant said. He figured out around this time last year that there would be a scheduling conflict.

As for getting around it, UMD could have played a Thursday/Friday series at Amsoil Arena or play at Amsoil on Friday and “on the road” at the Heritage Center on Saturday.

“It could have been a really cool environment, but given WCHA league standards, we wouldn’t have had access to instant replay and all the infrastructure that Amsoil offers,” Bryant said. “It just made the most sense to split the weekend up.”

This isn’t the only time when Bryant has seen something like this happen. “There are plenty of times where we go to Ohio State or Wisconsin where, because Big Ten conference schedules for football and basketball are sometimes fluid and dictate when other sports play, we have to make it work,” Bryant said.