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Students from St. Clair College have won a top prize in a provincial competition aimed at tackling one of hockey’s biggest challenges: aging and costly arenas.
The National Hockey League and the NHL Players’ Association say the Windsor, Ont., team earned “The Innovator Award” at this year’s Hockey Innovation Competition, held Wednesday at the Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa.
The award was shared with a team from Queen’s University.
The competition challenged participants to develop practical solutions to hockey infrastructure issues, including aging rinks, limited ice access and outdated facilities. It was open to post-secondary students across Ontario.
St. Clair’s winning concept, Reignite the Rink, focuses on retrofitting older arenas by capturing and reusing excess heat generated during ice production, integrating multi-use spaces and connecting communities through a digital platform.
Sausha Goodhand, Elle Hebert, Airika Natyshak and Aryanna Pierson outside the Canadian Tire Centre for the NHL Hockey Innovation Competition on March 25. (Dwayne St. John)
“The competition was absolutely amazing,” said Dwayne St. John, a professor at St. Clair College. “Most of the rinks are well over 40 years old. They’re huge energy consumers, and the price tag to rent the ice is extremely high.”
St. John says Sausha Goodhand, Elle Hebert, Airika Natyshak and Aryanna Pierson, students at St. Clair College, developed ideas aimed at reducing costs while making rinks more accessible and community-focused.
“They had some very creative ideas to reduce energy costs, get more people into the rinks and make them more of a community hub like they used to be when I was growing up,” he said.
Goodhand says the team developed what they call a “heat loop” system to reduce wasted energy.
“The main idea was to take all of the wasted heat energy that it costs to refrigerate the ice. A lot of arenas can spend over $160-thousand a year just for ice refrigeration,” she said.
The concept was inspired in part by Windsor Arena, a historic facility that is no longer in use.
Windsor Arena in May 2024. (Dalson Chen/CBC)
“We wanted to take that emotional impact and show how our idea would be able to transform the arena to be a community hub like it once was,” Goodhand said.
St. John says the project stood out for combining technical and practical solutions.
“It was a multi-pronged approach,” he said, explaining that the group of students recaptured energy from ice production. They then went a step further by incorporating a digital platform, allowing people to book ice time, rooms or parts of the facility.
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“That combination was key to them succeeding and winning this award,” he said.
The competition drew submissions from dozens of colleges and universities, narrowing it down to six finalist teams.
Participants worked with mentors from the NHL and business artificial intelligence company, SAP, to refine their ideas ahead of final presentations.
Beyond the competition itself, students say the experience offered rare access to industry leaders.
Sausha Goodhand and Dwayne St. John speak to CBC Windsor at its studio Wednesday. (Michael Evans/CBC News)
“It felt pretty surreal for all of us and our team members to be in the same room with people like the vice president of the NHL, leaders in SAP,” Goodhand said. “It was just amazing to even get the opportunity to be there at the Canadian Tire Centre [in Ottawa], but to actually take home the win is incredible.”
Mandi Duhamel, the NHL’s vice-president of community development and growth, says the initiative is part of a broader effort to grow the game.
“Part of the Industry Growth Fund is about where our investments should go to better the game for the future,” she said in a media release.
Organizers say the goal is not just to implement a single idea, but to gather new perspectives to help shape the future of hockey in Canada.
“Who better to look at the game from a fresh lens? They’re very futuristic, technology-based and environmentally friendly. The next generation sees things in new and fresh ways,” she said.
St. Clair College students stand outside the Ottawa arena for the NHL Hockey Innovation Competition. (Dwayne St. John)