Carbon monoxide poisons players at Wakaw hockey tournament: Mayor

Carbon monoxide from a faulty furnace left many young players sick at a hockey tournament in Wakaw last weekend.

The community hosted an under-15 hockey tournament at the Jubilee Arena, which featured eight teams from across the province competing from Friday through Sunday.

Shaun Fleming, whose son played in the tournament, said players on his son’s team started getting sick after their first two games.

“On the first day, we were noticing some kids getting some headaches throughout the day, but we had played two games that day so we were wondering if was dehydration after two competitive games,” the Regina parent said.

While most didn’t think the symptoms were a big deal at first, Fleming said players were feeling worse on the tournament’s second day.

“We were getting five, six, seven kids on our team playing with significant headaches, to the point where people were going to the stores to find Advil,” he explained.

A number of players said they were feeling too ill to play, and some even vomited while on the bench, Fleming added.

“We were wondering if it was a food illness,” he said.

The furnaces at Wakaw’s Jubilee Arena are being replaced after a number of players fell sick during a tournament last weekend. (Wakaw Arena Concession/Facebook)

Fleming said players on other teams were also feeling the symptoms, though he couldn’t say how many players were affected.

“That’s when people started getting worried,” he added.

“There was a lot of red flags,” Fleming said.

According to Fleming, the tournament finished as scheduled on Sunday, despite so many players feeling sick.

But while a number of players were affected, Fleming said parents didn’t seem to get the symptoms.

He said that may be because the parents were in the arena’s lobby most of the time, which had its windows open. The dressing room for players, on the other hand, was in the basement where there was little fresh air circulating.

Fleming said the tournament’s organizers contacted SaskEnergy to try and figure out what was going on.

Mayor says arena will replace furnaces

According to Mike Markowski, Wakaw’s mayor, SaskEnergy shut down the building on Monday, citing carbon monoxide from the arena’s heating system as the cause of the mass illness.

According to Markowski, the arena was built in the ’80s, but the furnaces were much newer than that. He said nothing like this has happened previously at the building.

The rink has since re-opened, but without the furnace running. Markowski said the arena will install new furnaces this week.

“Furnaces were shut down, and we were given the ‘all clear’ to resume activities Tuesday at the arena,” Markowski said.

650 CKOM has reached out to SaskEnergy for more information.

Markowski noted the rink has carbon monoxide detectors installed, but no alarms sounded during the tournament.

“It’s just one of those things that happened, and that’s why we have precautions in place to mitigate these issues. We’ll be looking at ways to be more aware,” he said.