Westpac Stadium experiences 'weekend from hell' after Ice Hockey Classic cancellation

Westpac Stadium Chief Executive Shane Harmon has told NewstalkZB that the Wellington venue experienced a “weekend from hell" with technical problems and then high winds causing the cancellation of the planned Ice Hockey Classic between Canada and the USA.

With the event scheduled to have been played on Saturday, technical problems with the temporary ice rink delayed the event until Sunday.

As of yesterday, with winds causing one side wall at the temporary rink to blow over shortly before the game the match was cancellation.

Commenting on the cancellation, Harmon (pictured below) stated “in 18 years of the Stadium, and also the 18 years I've worked in the events industry, this is the first cancelled event so I'm pretty shattered.

"We were expecting 10,000 on Saturday, my guess is we still had 7,000 on Sunday. People wanted to see the event.

"So to have to then cancel and pull the pin on Sunday was bitterly disappointing."

While Westpac Stadium apologised to ticket holders and advised that refunds would be available, it will not chase the event owners or promoters for any reimbursement.

While promoters TEG Live and TLA Worldwide will lose from having to refund about tickets, Harmon said there would also be a "significant" cost to the Stadium as it had to pay about 200 event staff.

Harmon said the organisers, non-for-profit organisation Stopconcussion, were now out of pocket by several hundred thousand dollars, adding “the upsetting thing is that this was originally a fundraiser, raising fund for research and education into concussion."

When asked why the event failed, Harmon continued "I'm not going to throw anyone under a bus, but it really comes down to the rink.

"We were given assurances by the experts that this rink would be ready, and it clearly wasn't on Saturday. And then obviously Mother Nature took its course on Sunday.

"But we were assured at each stage by the experts that we would have a playable rink.

"We thought they had adequate experience there to deliver for us.

"Yes, it was windy on Sunday, but we've hosted lots of events in windier conditions than that.

"For any outdoor rink, wherever it is anywhere in the world, it's going to have to be able to withstand some level of bad weather."

A TEG spokesperson said the production crew had vast experience with building outdoor ice rinks.

The spokesperson advised “even with the forecast weather conditions, the production crew was confident the infrastructure would cope, but this turned out not to be the case due to the very strong winds."

Meanwhile, Wellington Mayor Justin Lester said the city's proposed new indoor arena would be able to host ice hockey matches when it was built.

The planned new arena is to be of a similar size and capacity to Auckland's Spark Arena, where the teams played their first match of the tour on Friday.

While Westpac Stadium had proven itself to be a versatile venue, hosting "more events than was ever imagined when it was designed" WREDA Marketing and Destination Development Manager David Perks said an indoor arena would take the gamble out of holding events outdoors.

Perks added “to be fair we haven't been thinking 'oh this is an opportunity for ice hockey' but from our point of view is that an indoor arena would bring more of a variety of events to Wellington."

Construction of the new arena is not expected to start until about 2025.