Altrincham Ice Dome
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Altrincham Ice Dome is an ice rink in Altrincham, Greater Manchester, England. It has 2,026 seats according to the floorplan, and up to 500 standing places. The Ice Dome hosts the home matches of the Manchester Phoenix ice hockey club.
The Ice Dome is a prefabricated structure constructed in Finland. Assembly began in August 2006, and cost around £2.5m. The rink was due to open on 24 September 2006, when Manchester Phoenix were scheduled to host the Sheffield Steelers in their opening home game. But due to several delays, the opening was put back to 17 February 2007 match against the Edinburgh Capitals, with a reduced capacity of 1,200. However, due to the ice surface not being ready in time, the first game actually took place on 25 February 2007, against Basingstoke Bison. The number of people allowed into the building was just 1,000. The seating was finally finished in October 2007.
A series of plasma screen monitors were installed during the first half of the 2007–2008 season, in response to criticism from supporters of both the Phoenix and visiting teams as to the quality of the seatings sight lines. Parts of the ice surface were obscured due to walkways and access steps. The introduction of the screens has helped alleviate this as a live feed from the in house cameras is shown. The club also uses these screens during the pre-match build up and during breaks in play to improve the match night presentation.
The rink has a life expectancy of 15 years, but is expected to be replaced in 5 years time by a larger permanent facility on land adjacent to the current build.
The rink opened its doors to the public for ice skating sessions on 16 March 2007.
The first sold out event at the rink was for the 2007-2008 EIHL playoff quarter final, where the capacity of the building was announced as being 2,150 by Manchester Phoenix MD Neil Morris before the game.
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