It sounds as if the problem may occur when they have other events at
the Mullins Center either the day of or day before a hockey game.  As
well, from what I have heard (certainly not official), I think they
may have melted the ice to repaint the lines late in the week and then
not given it enough time to harden before covering it again for an
event that took place the day before the game.  The combination of
those two things is probably what caused the ice to be so bad.
 
When we drove out there for the Merrimack-UMA series, the teams played
two straight nights and everything seemed to be okay - in fact, we
went down by the glass for warmups and didn't notice the ice being
soft or covered with water.
 
Or since they are struggling this season, maybe they would want to
intentionally make the ice soft to slow up the opponents. :-)
 
Since UMA tends to play most HE opponents in a home and home series,
this is a problem that could pop up quite often in a season.
 
I also found it interesting that several of the players' parents, as
well as Heather, said that they had headaches both nights after being
in the building and we could only come up with two things to explain
it: fumes from the Zamboni (I doubt it), or the intensely bright
lights that hang overhead.
---                                                                   ---
Mike Machnik                                            [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc.                                    *HMM* 11/13/93