For the past 27 years, Bryce Cunday's working life has been all about ice. He's made ice, studied ice, cleared ice and melted ice during the span of his all-Canadian career.
Cunday was the head honcho in charge of maintaining the skating surface at Brennan Park, a nine-months-a-year responsibility, and worked his last shift on Sunday (Feb. 29).
Known as the jack-of-all-trades around Brennan Park, Cunday was responsible for installing the ice in August and maintaining it until May. Working four 10-hour shifts a week for the past 27 years, Cunday has put up some impressive numbers from his many hours behind the wheel of the Zamboni.
It takes eight laps to flood the surface of the ice which is 200 feet long - just shy of one kilometre. Flooding the ice four times a day, nine months a year makes a total of 576 trips around the rink. Multiply that by his 27 years of employment and his grand total works out to more than 15,000 km traveled - put another way, he could have driven his Zamboni across Canada to the east coast of Newfoundland and back again, and still have some leftover mileage.
"It's been fun," said Cunday. "I'd recommend the job to anyone, it's certainly not a boring job. I've enjoyed working with the public and I've always liked putting in the ice - it's always a challenge."
Through his experience, Cunday has the job of putting in the ice each year down to a science. First of all, the boards must be sealed to prevent water leakage. Then the cement surface is sprayed with a fine mist until it turns to frost. After this, he keeps adding water until the ice has frozen to a one-inch thickness, before painting the entire ice surface white. The paint then gets sealed under another quarter-inch of ice, and more painting is done to add lines and circles and face-off dots. More water is added to seal the paint which gets covered under an inch of ice to complete the process.
"The biggest challenge is keeping the ice at a proper level and keeping it consistent," he says. "We've got figure skating as well as hockey here and they both like the ice to be different temperatures."
When Cunday first started out on the job in the 70s, they used a machine built from the frame of a Chevy truck with a 350 V8 under the hood to clean the ice.
"God knows why, it never went more than 10 miles an hour," he recalls.
He has also had a few close calls and a couple of embarrassing moments over the years - like the time in the early 80s when the engine of the Zamboni seized during the first-ever Oldtimers tournament.
"That was interesting," said Cunday with a chuckle. "We tried pulling it around with a 4x4 pickup but that didn't really work so we had a bunch of shovels out there trying to keep the ice playable at least."
Then there was the time Cunday tried to back the Zamboni onto the ice while the hot-water hose was still connected. He melted a hole in the ice right down to the cement. Luckily for him, the hole was covered up by the net.
"Of course, as soon as the crowd saw that I got a big round of applause. Thank god I haven't too many of those moments - pretty embarrassing."
Carol Wynne, Brennan Park's recreation program supervisor, said Cunday is quite popular with everyone who uses the ice because he does such a good job, and has done so consistently for so many years.
"He pretty much did anything and everything," said Wynne. "If anybody wanted anything made, they'd always go to Bryce. He's been so helpful with all of the events we've had here. We're sure gonna miss him."
Cunday has worked his fair share of hockey tournaments, special events and figure skating carnivals during his career, and has enjoyed the variety of tasks involved behind the scenes.
"One of the things I enjoyed most were the figure skating carnivals - this place gets totally transformed, it's unbelievable. They're a challenge but they're a lot of fun."
He's met NHL all-stars like Eddie Shack, Gino Odgick and Maurice Richard, and saw local talent grow from young beginning skaters to elite-level hockey players, and has met many friends along the way.
"I'll miss that," he said. "The people and the friends I've met in this place is what I'm really going to miss. That's one of the best things about working here, you get to meet a lot of great people."
What he won't miss is waking up at 4:30 in the morning to be at the rink for 5 a.m.
Cunday and his wife plan to retire and move to the 100 Mile House area, to enjoy gardening and fishing.
"There won't be a fish up there that'll be safe," he says.
