The roof of the Jihlava stadium needs repair

Jihlava - Jihlava has preliminary information from the structural engineer about the condition of the roof of the winter stadium. Repairs will be necessary. Due to the equipment that will be moving around the stadium during the repairs, it is not possible to start with ice making. The complete static assessment will be available to the city at the end of August. This was stated to ČTK by Deputy Mayor Radek Popelka (ANO). According to an earlier assessment, the lifespan of the roof will end in August 2019. The city ordered a new assessment to find out whether it is possible to postpone repairs or whether it will be necessary to shorten its lifespan.

"We do not yet know the extent of the necessary repairs. We are waiting for the report; the exploratory work has just finished, the structural engineer has checked all the structures, and samples have been taken, which are in laboratories," said Popelka. According to his statement, it is already clear that some repairs will need to be made urgently. "There is no risk of collapse, but before we can start freezing, we want him to quickly tell us what needs to be repaired there," said Popelka.

The iRozhlas server, which pointed out the structural engineer's decision today, reported that the engineer prohibited ice making due to the deplorable state of the stadium's roof until the city repairs it.

According to Popelka, ice on the winter stadium usually starts to form after the summer preparation from August 1. This year, a foreign team expressed interest in training in Jihlava, for which the ice would have to be prepared by July 15. "We agreed with Dukla that they would rather cancel it because we do not know if we will be able to fix any defect in the roof by July 15," said Popelka.

The decision for a new assessment was made by the Jihlava city council in February. They will pay 440,000 crowns for it. The Horácký winter stadium has a roof from the 1960s. The owner of the stadium and the hockey club Dukla is the city. According to earlier estimates, replacing the roof of the stadium could cost around 50 million crowns.