{"id":580463,"date":"2026-04-02T09:37:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T09:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/580463\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T09:37:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T09:37:11","slug":"how-a-group-of-st-clair-college-students-won-an-nhl-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/580463\/","title":{"rendered":"How a group of St. Clair College students won an NHL award"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Students from St. Clair College have won a top prize in a provincial competition aimed at tackling one of hockey\u2019s biggest challenges: aging and costly arenas.<\/p>\n

The National Hockey League and the NHL Players\u2019 Association say the Windsor, Ont., team earned \u201cThe Innovator Award\u201d at this year\u2019s Hockey Innovation Competition, held Wednesday at the Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa.<\/p>\n

The award was shared with a team from Queen\u2019s University.<\/p>\n

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to develop practical solutions to hockey infrastructure issues, including aging rinks, limited ice access and outdated facilities.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.<\/p>\n

St. Clair\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\"FourSausha 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)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe competition was absolutely amazing,\u201d said Dwayne St. John, a professor at St. Clair College. \u201cMost 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Goodhand says the team developed what they call a \u201cheat loop\u201d system to reduce wasted energy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The concept was inspired in part by Windsor Arena, a historic facility that is no longer in use.<\/p>\n

\"AWindsor Arena in May 2024. (Dalson Chen\/CBC)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe 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,\u201d Goodhand said.<\/p>\n

St. John says the project stood out for combining technical and practical solutions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a multi-pronged approach,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

LISTEN | St. Clair College marketing students honoured by the NHL:<\/p>\n

Windsor Morning7:29St. Clair College marketing students honoured by the NHL<\/p>\n

\u201cThat combination was key to them succeeding and winning this award,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The competition drew submissions from dozens of colleges and universities, narrowing it down to six finalist teams. <\/p>\n

Participants worked with mentors from the NHL and business artificial intelligence company, SAP, to refine their ideas ahead of final presentations.<\/p>\n

Beyond the competition itself, students say the experience offered rare access to industry leaders.<\/p>\n

\"A Sausha Goodhand and Dwayne St. John speak to CBC Windsor at its studio Wednesday. (Michael Evans\/CBC News)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt 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,\u201d Goodhand said. \u201cIt 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mandi Duhamel, the NHL\u2019s vice-president of community development and growth, says the initiative is part of a broader effort to grow the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of the Industry Growth Fund is about where our investments should go to better the game for the future,\u201d she said in a media release.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho 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,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"ASt. Clair College students stand outside the Ottawa arena for the NHL Hockey Innovation Competition. (Dwayne St. John)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 4 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":580464,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-580463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=580463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/580464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}