Last night's Red Wings-Hurricanes game "was not played after a problem with a PNC Arena cooling system caused the temperature of the ice to rise and making the ice surface unsuitable for play," according to Chip Alexander of the Raleigh NEWS & OBSERVER. The NHL has a policy that a 22-hour window "must exist between back-to-back games," and the Red Wings are scheduled to play tonight in Tampa. With no chance of last night's game starting by 9:30pm ET, the decision was "reached to postpone the game and look to reschedule it." Hurricanes Exec VP & GM Ron Francis said, "I don’t remember any issue similar to this, so it’s certainly frustrating.” Hurricanes President Don Waddell said that it "was first discovered" at 6:00pm that a "broken seal on the main compressor that operates the ice chiller was allowing freon to leak, causing the temperature of the ice to rise." Several updates were "made to the fans in the arena" before an announcement at 8:45pm that the game had been postponed. Waddell said that a ticket-exchange plan "would be announced soon" (Raleigh NEWS & OBSERVER, 12/20). Red Wings LW Henrik Zetterberg said, "We had a feeling pretty early on that it probably wouldn't be a game. ... The biggest concern was the safety of the players to go out and play and have the ice ready for us." In Detroit, Ted Kulfan notes some players "complained about the poor ice conditions Monday after the morning skate but didn't find the condition totally abnormal." Waddell and Red Wings Exec VP & GM Ken Holland indicated that a "make-up date for the game would hopefully be announced in the next few days" (DETROIT NEWS, 12/20). Waddell said that the "normal ice temperature at the start of a game is 18 degrees, but the temperature when the game was postponed was 24." This is the "first time a hockey game at the arena -- which opened for the 1999-2000 season -- was postponed because of technical issues" (AP, 12/19).
PICK UP THE CHECK: Waddell on Friday said that two of the team's 21 investors have "decided not to continue" in their roles. He said that the two individuals had a total investment of $6M, though he did not identify them. Waddell "did say that one current investor decided to pick up another" $1.5M investment in the team, so the franchise is "looking for others to take up the remaining" $4.5M (BIZJOURNALS.com, 12/16).
