The ice making crew at the T.G. Smith Centre was excited to take delivery of a brand new Zamboni this week.

Russ Dyck is the Head of Steinbach Parks and Recreation. He says they ordered the new ice-resurfacer a full year ago to replace their 13-year-old model.

"We have two rinks here so we use it quite a bit, we also do the outdoor rink with it so it was up there in hours, I think we were over 8,000 hours so it did need to be replaced at this point. It was still working, we had done some repairs on it over the last two years but we do need a reliable piece of equipment here given the busyness of our rink and the two sheets going at once."

The new Zamboni cost the city of Steinbach $125,000 and was supposed to arrive last October, but Dyck says manufacturing delays meant it was only delivered this week. He notes the new machine is not only newer but it is also a larger model.

"With the two rinks that we operate here, it is nice to have a little more capacity in terms of being able to do back to back floods. It won't always work, depending on who is using the ice, but if it is smaller kids using the ice we use a little less water then we will probably be able to do both rinks back to back without reloading."

Dyck says the ice-making crew has already started to use the new Zamboni and they are really happy with it.