Off the Ice

Slush Puppie Centre about more than just hockey: case study

By Shane Edwards

After a 2020-21 hockey season that saw the Gatineau Olympiques play almost no games on home ice and experience one hiccup after another, the Quebec major junior hockey team was able to start the 2021-22 season fresh at Slush Puppie Centre. Built as a replacement for the 1957-built Robert Guertin Centre, the brand-new, 220,000-square-foot arena boasts state-of-the-art amenities and training facilities all under one roof, as well as four full-sized ice surfaces — three for community use, figure skating and pickup leagues, and one with VIP booths and a 4,000-seating capacity for the Olympiques.

Project contractor Beaudoin Canada and general contractor Construction JPL, in collaboration with the City of Gatineau, turned to Mapei Canada to address the project’s flooring needs, which led to the company’s largest industrial flooring systems deployment in Canada. Delivered in September 2021, the project features the company’s cementitious and resin flooring systems and tile and stone installation systems products.

ON THE JOB

Industrial flooring systems provide durability and a host of possibilities for decorative finishes. Visitors at the Slush Puppie Centre’s community entrance and amphitheatre entrance (for the main arena) are greeted by a broadcast of Mapeflakes decorative vinyl flakes that are clearly visible through the high-gloss Mapecoat Universal epoxy resin seal coat and binder. Common areas here and throughout the interior were first coated in Primer SN and Mapefloor I 302 SL as an epoxy resin basecoat, which boasts easy cleanability and good resistance against the abrasives and salts that are commonly tracked in by pedestrian boots

in cold Canadian winters. It also provides a highly attractive, slip-resistant finish that is both flat and seamless.

SURFACE PREPARATION

To prepare for the concrete slab, installers from Idéal Epoxy started with Mapecem Quickpatch concrete patch to correct imperfections and Planitop 18 ES high-earlystrength, cementitious repair mortar with a corrosion inhibitor for sloping of the floor around the foot grills in the entrances. They also used Planigrout 712 non-shrinking, non-metallic, cement-based grout with a corrosion inhibitor as a protective coat for the steel column baseplates.

MAIN ARENA AND STANDS

The amphitheatre seating area was built differently than the rest of the project, using precast concrete that was cured to a very high density compared to the concrete slabs found elsewhere. This required a low viscosity primer to promote a better bond, so installers went with Mapefloor I 900 epoxy resin primer instead of the usual Primer SN.

While the Mapefloor I 302 SL is highviscosity, it can still be easily sprayapplied with no concern about clogging up equipment. Some contractors want to dilute the product with solvents for spray application but this is not recommended because it can cause issues with the resiliency and colour quality of the finished product. As the crew from Idéal Epoxy discovered, such dilution was completely unnecessary. In this case, the crew was able to spray-apply 65,000 square feet of Mapefloor I 302 SL in a single day, covering the entire vertical and horizontal surfaces for the stands of the main rink.

MAINTENANCE AREAS

Taking care of four arenas means the facility sees a lot of traffic from Zambonis, the heavy machines used for ice rink resurfacing, each weighing up to 7,720 pounds when fully loaded with water. Because of this, an even more rugged solution was needed —

\\ Common areas throughout Slush Puppie Centre were first coated in Mapei Primer SN and Mapefloor I 302 SL as an epoxy resin basecoat.

Mapefloor CPU/RT, which features a high level of chemical resistance.

Together with its complementary topcoat Mapefloor CPU/TC, Mapefloor CPU/RT is formulated to cover industrial floors that are subject to heavy traffic flow, aggressive chemicals and thermal shock. This made it a natural choice for the flooring in the facility’s maintenance areas and service corridors.

Another special consideration was the amount of direct sunlight that many areas of epoxy resin flooring are subject to, given the floor-to-ceiling pane glass front walls that span the length of the structure’s main facade. Specifiers determined an extra finishing coat would be necessary in these and other areas where heavy foot traffic was expected. Mapefloor Finish 53 W/L was used where a high-gloss finish was desired, and Mapefloor Finish 54 W/S for semigloss. These transparent, protective, aliphatic, polyurethane finishing coats are formulated to help maintain the epoxy resin flooring’s high aesthetic for years to come.

TILE WORK AND CARPET

Installers from surface covering company Jacques Lamont Ltd. worked with the Green Squared certified Mapei Ultralite Mortar for the wall tiling in shower rooms and other wet areas. It is a premium, lightweight, thinset mortar with BioBlock technology for mould and mildew resistance. The floors in these areas were done using Mapecoat Universal with Mapefloor DQ decorative quartz and Mapefloor Finish 53 W/L. Installers also used Ultrabond ECO 811 high-performance, acrylic latex adhesive for installation of the 1,300 yards of carpet tile in the private lounges.

Shane Edwards is the product line manager for Mapei Canada’s cementitious and resin flooring systems line, with more than 25 years of flooring industry experience. Prior to joining Mapei, Shane was an installation flooring specialist, quality control and operations manager, technical consultant, project manager and business development leader. He also provided management oversight for his privately owned manufacturing and installation company.