From: Karin

--- Rick Halvorson <sabercatsfan@...> wrote:
By Bob McManaman
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 21, 2001
http://www.arizonarepublic.com/sports/articles/10212coliseumside1021.html
It didn't melt. Not all of it anyway.
When workers at Veterans Memorial Coliseum tore out
the ice surface from the 36-year-old arena on July 1
and piled it outside on the concrete to let nature and
the Arizona sun take its course, at least one person
was there to preserve a very small part of it.  Call
him the Ice Man.
>
> "I just didn't want to see it die forever," Dave
> Barnhart of Glendale explained.
>
> Barnhart, a 38-year-old Web site designer for
> Phoenix-based Data Dimensions, has lived in the
> Valley
> since 1966. He didn't fall in love with hockey until
> about four or five years ago, when his 13-year-old
> son, Colin, started playing the game.
>
> The entire family quickly became involved and before
> they knew it, hockey was in their blood.
>
> "Colin brought home some free tickets to a
> Roadrunners
> game and we started going whenever we could," Dave
> Barnhart said. ''When the Roadrunners dissolved and
> the Mustangs started up, we decided to buy the
> mini-season-ticket package. The last couple years,
> we
> bought the full package and went to just about every
> single game."
>
> He said he knew his wife, Mary Ann, was hooked on
> hockey when she asked for a Mustangs jersey for
> Mother's Day. By then, the whole family was learning
> to skate. Dave even joined a recreational adult
> hockey
> league at the Coliseum.
>
> They were there the last day the Coliseum was open
> for
> public ice skating. The Mustangs had already ceased
> operations and the next day, the ice would be
> permanently removed. Barnhart, like so many others,
> was crushed.
>
> "For us, the Coliseum and that sheet of ice for such
> a
> long time had become the central hub of our lives,"
> he
> said. "I decided the next morning to go back and say
> goodbye to the ice one last time."
>
> By the time Barnhart got to the Coliseum, he thought
> he was too late. He saw a huge puddle of water and
> thought the ice was already gone.
>
> "But then I saw a couple guys with this big, heavy
> machinery dragging some big chunks of ice out the
> doors and the inspiration just hit me," he said. "I
> asked one of them if it would be OK if I grabbed a
> chunk of it, so I grabbed the biggest hunk I could
> find, which was about 6 inches across and a couple
> inches thick."
>
> With the sun baring down, Barnhart quickly drove to
> the nearest convenience store, where he bought a
> couple of bags of ice, and preserved the slate in a
> cooler. It now resides in his freezer, alongside
> groceries, where he vows it will remain
> indefinitely.
>
> "When my son came home, I showed it to him, and he
> asked, 'What's that?' " Barnhart said. "I told him,
> 'Son, this is the ice surface we used to skate on,'
> and a hush came over him and he said, 'Dad, that's
> Coliseum ice.'
>
> "I knew at that point I had done a good thing."
>
> But it gets better. If and when the Mustangs ever
> return to competition, be it in the West Coast
> Hockey
> League or any other, Barnhart pledges he will bring
> his icy memento to the team's new facility.
>
> "My hope is that they'll let me take this hunk of
> ice
> and kind of melt it into the new ice as a sort of
> bridge," Barnhart said. ''I just think that would be
> the right thing to do."
>
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=====
2001 Seattle Mariners Baseball -- History LIVE!

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