Wet weather this summer slowed construction on a “cool” new attraction in Dubuque. Now, crews are getting some free help as they scramble to finish the Mystique Community Ice Arena in time for the Dubuque Fighting Saints’ first hockey game on September 11th. More than 100 volunteers are working on the multi-million dollar project – including hockey fan Barb Block.
“We’ve laid coil. We’ve laid sand. We’ve laid tubing. We’ve laid brackets,” Block said. “I want this rink to be done and I want everybody to come in and be happy and have a smile and say, ‘wow.'” Block and dozens of other volunteers have been at the arena every day for the past month helping any way they can.
“I’ll tell you, you get a lot of self pride out of it too. You can look at this place…we built this center by hand,” Block said. Arena Manager Greg Samms put out the call for help last month, when the mountain of work seemed more than construction crews could handle. The volunteers are also helping control costs.
“I would guess that we saved over $50,000 to date with volunteer labor,” Samms said. The Dubuque Fighting Saints are part of the United States Hockey League which also has teams in Waterloo, Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, Sioux City and Omaha.
By Katie Wiedemann, KCRG-TV, Cedar Rapids