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Cambria County War Memorial Arena Receives Much-Needed Upgrades

Along with national bragging rights, winning the designation of Hockeyville USAbrings with it $150,000 dollars to upgrade the local hockey venue, which in the case of the 65-year-old Cambria County War Memorial Arena was much needed.

“There have been probably been about 20 plus years or so since any real substantial upgrades have happened at this building,” saidJohnstown TomahawksDirector of Media and Communications, Chad Mearns. “These improvements came at a very crucial time for this city, at a crucial time for this building. Pretty much any direction that you look, even if you don’t realize it, you see something that has some sort of change, some sort of improvement this summer.”

Through several rounds or on-line and telephone voting, Johnstown emerged as the winner of the first Hockeyville USA contest in May of 2015. The winning effort took community-wide involvement and some help of those outside the region as well, including the Hanson Brothers of the movieSlap Shotand the Pittsburgh Penguins.

During a recent tour of the arena, Mearns told Essential Pittsburgh that when the team began to put together a list of upgrades to be made before the NHL preseason game that comes as part of being Hockeyville USA, they wanted to make sure that they would benefit the team, youth hockey and the larger community.

“It’s not just a hockey facility, they have concerts and conventions and other events here and we wanted to make it better for pretty much everybody who might ever need to use this building.”

On the hockey side of things was the need to improve the ice making equipment, expand the bench area and the penalty boxes and replace the dasher boards and protective glass. It was clear that the list was quickly exceeding the $150,000 prize.

Lucky for Johnstown, also this summer the Dallas Stars of the NHL were putting in a new set of boards and glass and they were looking for a place to send their old system.

“It’s the NHL so they always want the biggest and best,” said Mearns of the Stars’ decision to replace what he says is a perfectly fine set of boards and glass. “We made arraignments to have that shipped up from Dallas and went to work installing it.”

The system had to be retrofit to match the War Memorial’s quirks but Mearns says they are happy with the results.

To support the greater hockey movement in the area, the youth locker rooms are being expanded, and to help all arena users, the air handling system was improved, the sound system was upgraded, and a few hundred thousand dollars worth of new LED lights were installed.

The old lights took ten minutes to warm up, which made for some tense moments after they were turned off for the pregame announcements and national anthem and then were expected to be back on in time for the drop of the puck according to Mearns.

But the money from the Hockeyville award was long gone by then, so the War Memorial Authority along with the county found a way to cover the additional costs.

“The kicker to all of that is that it is an energy efficient system that is much kinder on the environment and the wallet… which will have an impact way past Hockeyville,” Mearns said.

Thanks to the movie Slap Shot, the arena is actually a tourist attraction, and for many long time Johnstown residents who remember the weeks of filming it is a point of pride. Most of the extras in the film were Johnstown residents and several of the players were actual Johnstown Jets players.

The upgrades will be on prominent display tonight on the national broadcast of the contest between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Tampa Bay Lightening.

More Essential Pittsburgh segments can be heard here.

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