BY ADAM ATKINSON
North Country This Week

POTSDAM — Public skating reopened at Pine Street Arena Sunday, Jan. 8, after a Zamboni breakdown Dec. 27 shut down ice time for several days.

“As of 6:00 PM Friday evening, the Zamboni was once again operational and running as it should. However, without being able to do the ice for almost 10 days, we soon discovered some low spots on the ice surface,” said a post on the Village of Potsdam Recreation Facebook page Sunday, Jan. 8.

“We took all of yesterday to put more water down and build up over those areas and officially reopened this morning,” the post said.

The Recreation Department posted an updated schedule on its Facebook page and held its first public skating starting at 11 a.m. Monday.

The updated schedule can be viewed online at https://bit.ly/3GPltY2 .

The rink has been closed since Dec. 27 when three of the Zamboni’s 16 battery cells failed to hold charge and staffers had to push the vehicle off the ice.

“Last Tuesday, before our scheduled Raquette River Lions Club Free Skate, one of our drivers attempted to do the ice when the Zamboni died at center ice before any maintenance could be performed,” Village Recreation Director Trey Smutz, told North Country This Week. “At that time, we had to manually push the machine off the ice. The Zamboni would still at that time power on, but the sound it was making was not up to par with the way it normally runs and we could quickly tell that it wasn't operating with full power.”

The Zamboni is new, having been purchased by the village last year for $153,000.

A technician from the company traveled to Potsdam late last week to work on the machine and fix the battery issue.

Village Administrator Greg Thompson told the newspaper last week that he was confident the company would be covering the cost of the repair given it was less than a year old.

The village Recreation Department said it would be substituting some of the free public skating donated by Raquette River Lions Club that was lost during the shutdown. Free skating will be offered during the following dates to the public, thanks to the Lions Club: Friday, Jan. 13, from 4:30-5:30 p.m. and Sunday, Jan. 15, from 1:30-2:30 p.m.

“Rental skates will still be $3.00, and we will look to add 1-2 more of these more conveniently timed public skating events to make up for the loss around the Holiday Break,” said the Recreation Department’s Facebook page.