The Grand Opening of the National Hockey League (NHL) Anaheim Ducks new training facility was celebrated earlier this year on March 7, 2019. The NHL Anaheim Ducks owners Henry and Susan Samueli, the Irvine Ice Foundation and FivePoint held the grand opening to celebrate the new $110M, 280,000 square foot Great Park Ice and FivePoint Arena where the Ducks new training facility is located.

This new facility is comprised of four indoor rinks, with the centerpiece being the FivePoint Arena, comprised of an NHL-sized rink with a scoreboard, press box, and a seating capacity of 2,500. It offers the ability to host a wide variety of sporting and entertainment events. There are two additional NHL size rinks and an Olympic-sized rink, each with seating for around 500. The ice facility was built on 13.5 acres located inside the boundaries of the Orange County Great Park. 

The Great Park Ice Complex will host youth and adult hockey programs, tournaments, competitive figure skating competitions, curling, speed skating, and public open skating. There is an upstairs lobby that runs the length of all four rinks allowing spectators to look down on the action below. The Ducks will have their own locker room, weight room, kitchen, hot and cold Jacuzzis and sauna. The U.S. Figure Skating team will also utilize the complex as a training facility. The figure skating wing features a sauna, ballet room, dance room, recovery room and music room. Other amenities include a restaurant and sports bar, concession stand, team store, pro shop, party rooms, classrooms, administrative offices for the Ducks employees, locker rooms, and training facilities. There will be ample room for parking with 1,000 spaces.

The popularity of hockey has grown immensely in the Orange County area and continues to grow but the local infrastructure and availability of ice facilities has not been able to keep pace. The Rinks is the Ducks’ group of nine ice facilities that stretches from Lakewood to Anaheim and from Corona to Poway offering youth and adult hockey programs. The demand for ice time has been great across the Rinks’ network which has been at 100% capacity for several years. The Great Park Ice Complex multi-purpose facility will help alleviate some of the burden shared by ice rinks in Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside, and San Diego counties.

The Ducks have been holding their preseason camp and in-season practices at Anaheim Ice which is a 24 year old facility with two ice surfaces and limited parking. This has been the practice home of the Ducks since 1994 which they quickly outgrew. This new ice complex with all its amenities will be a welcomed upgrade for the team.

The Samuelis purchased the Anaheim Ducks from The Walt Disney Company in 2005. They had a vision of building the community around ice hockey and getting kids involved in skating programs. Since there were not enough ice facilities around at the time, they started on a mission to grow more interest in ice sports and the number of ice rinks in the community. The Great Park Ice complex is Orange County’s first in over 20 years since Anaheim Ice. Financing for the project was provided by the Irvine Ice Foundation, a non-profit organization created by the Ducks owners, the Samuelis, which will operate and maintain the facility for 50 years after which the ownership will revert to the City of Irvine. This project was self-funded, self-sustaining and did not require taxpayer funds for construction. This new 280,000 square foot multi-purpose state-of-the-art ice facility is the largest in California and one of the largest of its kind in the nation. It fulfills more than one goal for the Samuelis, it provides a much needed upgraded practice facility for the Anaheim Ducks as well as a way to give to the community providing kids with an opportunity to learn and excel in ice sports and possibly one day develop into the caliber of players who might eventually play for the Ducks.

Great Park Ice was built with two pre-engineered metal buildings, connected and interlaced with a conventional structural system. Using this method helped achieve significant schedule and cost savings without compromising the quality. The outside glass of the facility features different shades of blue with wavy curved shapes representing the ocean, waves and water serving as a unique façade for the metal building behind. The glass façade also takes advantage of the warm and sunny climate of Irvine, CA by allowing more natural light into the facility. The facility is in the process of obtaining LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Silver certification which is part of the NHL Green Initiative.

Hot-dip galvanizing was chosen for portions of the project due to its superior corrosion protection. The material that was hot-dip galvanized for the Great Park Ice facility included structural steel for the exterior canopy and support structures above the glass façade, sign support structures, handrails in each of the arenas, screen wall, as well as stairs that required a progressive dip due to their size. This galvanized material was painted on-site except for the screen wall to achieve a duplex system for aesthetics purposes. The architects design theme was to include as many elements as possible that were white or painted white to represent snow and ice. The synergy of this duplex coating provides protection superior than either system used independently and will enhance corrosion protection providing maintenance-free longevity for decades to come.