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Hospitality Ice Rinks See ROI with HEE

By hospitality, ice resurfacer, refurb program, seasonal rinks, sport ice, training program, wm, zamboni One Comment

HEE specializes in hospitality ice resurfacer repair and sales

Casinos are seeing a healthy ROI with HEE – HE Engineering. 

For 2-3 months a year, casinos, hotels, wineries, tourism boards and retail shopping centers are seeing people coming in droves to get their winter experience. Throughout the Orange County, Los Angeles, San Diego, Inland Empire and Las Vegas this trend of off-peak seasonality is becoming the new norm. 

Booking sales, food and beverage tickets and average stays are increased with experiential ice rink programs. Some hospitality clients are converting their pools into ice rinks during winter, wineries and retailers creating a mix use space for rinks, concerts and on-premise activations. 

“We have been supporting seasonal rinks for eight years now. The hospitality inquiries started with modest repairs and now they want full seasonal support, preventive maintenance and for HEE to help them refurb older ice resurfacers. Recently, we have been tapped to support our hospitality clients with vetting new ice resurfacers purchases for their rinks. In 2023-24 season, we have built a specialized hospitality team and are looking at expanding our warehouse for off-season maintenance and storage offerings.” – Owner/Director of Engineering of HE Engineering, Henry Eakle.

Tips on running a successful experiential ice skating program in hospitality:

  • Rink Design – We found operators don’t take in account of ice resurfacer storage (Height / drainage / space for simple maintenance), water, electric and many other factors. We can help you with future proofing your operations.
  • Pitfalls of Sport Ice or aging units – A very high volume inquiry for HEE is that they have Sport Ice units and are not able to get customer support or find parts. We have a couple solutions and can assist. 
  • Ice Resurfacer Repair / Maintenance – We inherit a lot of “we had a guy, but…” We specialize in the interworking of ice resurfacers (Zamboni, Olympia, WM, Sport Ice, etc). We have a seasonal plan to help you sleep well knowing everything is ready in pre-season, support during primetime usage and most importantly post-season repair/maintenance and keeping units running in the off season.
  • Vetting New Purchases – HEE can vet all the brand ice resurfacers as we have taken them all down to their frames and rebuilt them with our refurbish program. Not all brands are equal and your rinks have unique needs. We can help you vet your ice resurfacers purchase and avoid waiting for 1-1.5 years. We have parts in our warehouse to avoid any inventory shortage too.
  • Employee Training – One of the most important tips we can give to anyone in hospitality is implementing HEE’s operator training each year is crutial (We recommend this from NHL to private rinks). Training prevents injury of staff and patrons, saves you a ton on damaging the ice, boards, and your very expensive ice resurfacer. If they know how to operate your ice resurfacer you’ll win every year. 

HEE – HE Engineering is a full-service ice resurfacer repair, maintenance and sales specialist with coverage in California, Nevada, and Arizona. If you are an established operator with an ice resurfacer that is showing its age or a group looking to create a new revenue source during winter months we can help you. Have HEE shorten your learning curve and get our specialist to ensure success.