National Sports Center Blog

Lighting project will save NSC nearly 40 homes worth of energy annually

Last spring, the National Sports Center received $475,000 in asset preservation funding from the State of Minnesota for roof repair on the Schwan Super Rink and the installation of a new energy-efficient LED lighting system in the 24-year-old Sports Hall, in the NSC’s parking lots and exterior lighting of some of the NSC buildings.

Both projects are in full-speed mode this fall. Here is an update.

The Schwan Super Rink roof repair has been completed and All Elements, Inc., the contractor, is completing gutter repairs as the final step in the Super Rink project.

NSC Facility Operations Manager Brandon Radeke moves some of the 256 new fixtures into the Sports Hall.

Last week, the NSC took delivery of 549 new light fixtures, of which 256 will be installed in the Sports Hall and the remainder in exterior fixtures on parking lots and building exteriors. This week, the NSC’s operations staff has been busily replacing our old metal halide lights in the Sports Hall with the new LED lights.

Ashley Marston, the NSC’s Sustainability Manager, reports some impressive numbers in energy savings:

The NSC’s consumption of energy for lighting will be reduced from 1.23 million kilowatt hours (kWh) annually to 602,020 kWh. This is a savings equivalent to the annual energy usage of

Dave Brown, the NSC Building Services Technician removes old metal halide fixtures.

39.6 homes, or 1,009 barrels of oil.

The lighting investment will be paid back in less than three years.

“The NSC is a state campus, and the state has a strong interest in keeping its facilities in top condition,” said Neil Ladd, the NSC’s Senior Director of Golf and Campus Operations. “The NSC is into our 25^th year of operation, and this funding will help us make huge strides in energy efficiency.”

 

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New fixtures waiting to be installed.

Getting the Stadium field ready for the Stars home opener

By Barclay Kruse, NSC Chief Communications Officer

The National Sports Center's turf crew was busy working on the Stadium field today, preparing the field for the Minnesota Stars FC home opening game on May 5. Curtiss Conkright, the NSC's Turf Superintendent, and his crew were laying new sod along the sideline and bench area.

Today's work is just a part of a campus-wide program of field renovation that has started already and will continue right up until Schwan's USA CUP in July. If you play at the NSC this spring, you'll find that we're busy with field repairs and resting a number of our fields, including U1 (except for Stars games) throughout the spring and early summer. Heavy rains during Schwan's USA CUP last July caused some pretty serious field damage, and we're doing everything we can to bring our fields back to premier condition for this year's tournament.

Above: Curtiss Conright laying the new sod. Below: The crew grades the base level, ready for new sod.

Dominate your club's homepage

 By Scott Clasen, Director of Marketing

In an effort to expand our blog beyond just the walls of the National Sports Center, we've asked Carson Kipfer, co-founder and chief visionary officer with TST Media to contribute periodically to our blog. We've entered into a partnership with TST Media to remake our websites using their NGIN system, a platform that numerous clubs and associations that frequent the NSC use. Carson has great insight into how to fully leverage your club's web presence. Here's Carson's recent work about how to dominate your club's homepage:

It is common knowledge that your website is the official communication clearinghouse for your club. When someone is seeking club information, they hop online and head straight to your club’s website homepage.

But once they arrive on your club’s homepage, how easy is it for a visitor to find the content that they’re looking for?

Many website managers try to accomplish too much with their club’s homepage, which in many cases creates an overwhelming and unusable mess of disconnected content. With homepage design, less is definitely more. To accomplish this, think of your homepage as an easily scannable teaser that directs site visitors to more immersive and in-depth information located deeper within your website. (Example: don’t display the entirety of an important five paragraph announcement, just display the title, a sentence of teaser text, and a link to read more.)

To determine what to highlight on your site’s homepage, ask yourself one extremely important question: What content is most important to most visitors? Try and limit your response to 5-10 timely content areas.

Use this list of effective homepage content areas to help determine what to include on your club’s homepage:

• Recent news and announcement teasers (and a link to view all news and announcements)
• Recent, in-progress and upcoming games (and a link to view your entire schedule)
• Current stat leaders (and a link to view complete club statistics)
• Current standings
• Calls to action (such as registration, donations or joining a mailing list)
• Current promotions (link to more information)
• Shortcuts (link to the most frequently requested pieces of content)
• Social network connections (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Ustream, etc.)
• Multimedia previews (link to recent photos and video)

Research has shown that it takes less than 1/20th of a second for visitors to formulate their first impression of a website and the organization that it represent... so don’t overlook the value of great homepage design.

Fundraising at heart of Stick it to Cancer tournament

$100,000. That's the number that organizers of the Stick it to Cancer Hockey Tournament at the Schwan Super Rink want to raise for cancer research in 2012. This unique girls' and women's tournament started in 1999 as a fundraiser for hockey-loving mom Jody Anderson, who was stricken with breast cancer.

From those humble beginnings that included 18 teams and raised around $2,000, Stick it now expects 120 teams April 20-22 and hopes to sail past the $70,000 that was raised the past two years.  All proceeds are donated to the University of Minnesota Masonic Cancer Research Fund.

To assist in increasing revenue for donation, a waffle breakfast sponsored by Park and Auto-Mart in Ham Lake, MN, is also held on the Saturday morning of the tournament and is open to the public. Even if you're not playing in Stick it, you can pay it forward and contribute to the cause simply by eating waffles or donating online.

What makes this event unique and special is that it's not just a hockey tournament. It's a gathering of people dedicated to raising money for a good cause and enjoying fellowship through the game of hockey. You can read the stories of some who are involved in the tournament and why they play, on our Facebook page.

 

Our new Sport Expo Center nearing completion

By Barclay Kruse, NSC Chief Communications Officer

After a winter with great construction weather (much warmer and less snow than normal), the construction crew from Kraus-Anderson Construction has been able to move the NSC's new Sport Expo Center construction along at a breakneck pace. I stopped by today to take a look:

Below: Here's the view from the stadium. The turf is showing some mid-season form too - lush and green! (Again, thanks to our mild winter.)

The view along the south side of the building, toward the stadium field.

The new floor has been poured. This will be the new location for the PUMA World Store during Schwan's USA CUP. The high ceiling will accommodate sports use.

And just a few days ago, the glass windows were installed in the entry lobby.

We are on track to open the Sport Expo Center in early June, if not a little ahead of schedule. The Expo Center will be the new home of the NSC's two outdoor shows, the Great Waters Fly Fishing Expo and the Minnesota Bass Expo in 2013, as well as other shows throughout the year.

 

 

Victory Links' new golf carts are here!

By Barclay Kruse, NSC Chief Communications Officer

It's a big day over at the NSC's Victory Links golf course. The first of our fleet of 76 brand new golf carts rolled off the truck today. These new carts will have some great new features that are sure to be a big hit with Victory Links golfers. Most notably, they'll cruise along at 14 m.p.h., at least 5 m.p.h faster than our old carts.

"That should take 15-20 minutes off a typical round," said head pro Scott Roth.

Head pro Scott Roth with his new toy.

Each cart comes with a bi-fold windshield, which will be a great feature on windy days. Add in bag rain covers, more comfortable seating, and an awesome candy-apple red paint job and we're expecting some big smiles on our customers' faces starting ... Saturday morning! The forecast is for perfect golf weather this weekend -- sunshine and temperatures in the 70's. So come on out to Victory Links and take one of our new carts for a test spin this weekend!

 

Fly fishing, golf and hockey - a great spring weekend at the NSC!

By Barclay Kruse, NSC Chief Communications Officer

We're getting set for a big weekend of spring activities and events at the NSC. In fact, as I write this, on Friday afternoon, we're already well underway.

The Great Waters Fly Fishing Expo runs from 3-7pm today, and all day Saturday and Sunday. The event is held at the Schwan Center, with some classes and clinics held outdoors.

Below: Friday morning, vendors were putting the final touches on their booths at the Great Waters Fly Fishing Expo.

Over at the Schwan Super Rink, the Minnesota Elite AAA hockey tournament was already underway with three days of games for both boys and girls teams. If you're reading this from a non-Minnesota location, you might be puzzled that we call hockey a spring activity here. In truth, hockey is a year-around sport for many Minnesota players. In fact some of our biggest tournaments at the Super Rink are summer tournaments. Here's some game action from rink 2:

By the way, participants in the Minnesota Elite Classic will get special admission rates to the Great Waters Fly Fishing Expo. Youth will be admitted free, and adults can enter for just $5.

Then I jetted over the Victory Links golf course, where we were celebrating opening day on the big 18-hole course. We're opening a full three weeks earlier than last year, and the course conditions are close to perfect. In fact, you'll notice in these photos that the course looks close to mid-summer conditions -- and it's only March! And with warm weather in the forecast, the Victory Links staff is excited to have the course full of eager golfers this weekend.  Here are some photos to show you just how nice the course is looking:

Tournament Greens putting course:

A foursome was putting out on the 6th hole, a par 4:

 

Casting around for something to do this weekend? Head to our fly fishing show!

By Scott Clasen, Director of Marketing

Yea, I know, pretty cheesy title, but I couldn't resist the fishing theme, so forgive me! We are very excited to once again host Tom Helgeson's Great Waters Fly Fishing Expo at the Schwan Center this coming weekend. The National Sports Center took over this event last year in cooperation with the Tom Helgeson family following Tom's death in 2010 and we're honored to continue his legacy with this fantastic show. Fly fishing headlines this week's activities as we take a look at the coming week for the National Sports Center. As always check all of our daily events and activities here.

Victory Links Golf Course to open this week

The driving range at the Victory Links course here at the NSC opened today and the full course is tentatively scheduled to open this Friday. Stay tuned for the announcment. In the meantime, get out to the range and dust the cobwebs off your game.

Try Zumba for Free - Schwan Super Rink Dance & Fitness Studio, March 20; 7 pm

Zumba is a fun-filled excercise class that infuses dancing with a traditional fitness class. Hard to describe? Well, come try it yourself for free Tuesday and see if it's for you. Download the PDF flyer here for more information.

Tom Helgeson's Great Waters Fly Fishing Expo - Schwan Center; March 23, 3:30-7 pm; March 24, 9 am-6 pm; March 25, 9 am-4 pm

Go directly to the Great Waters website to see a detailed schedule of speakers and presenters. You don't want to miss the show that will get you thinking about longs days of casting in beautiful streams and rivers.

Minnesota Elite Classic AAA Hockey Tournament - Schwan Super Rink; March 23-25

Those that follow hockey know that AAA hockey is a great training opportunity for young players. The Minnesota Elite Classic puts AAA players into regional squads that face-off for territorial bragging rights. 

How do our greens get green so fast? Read this post.

By Curtiss Conkright, Turf Superintendent

Whenever I tell someone what I do for a living there are usually two main questions they ask.

What do you do in the winter? And how do I make my yard green?

At Victory Links Golf Course one trick we use for getting our greens green before everything else is the application of black sand over our putting surfaces, which is done after the course closes in the fall. The sand is our normal topdressing sand dyed black and it offers protection to the crown of the plant over the winter months.  In the spring it has another benefit. Early green-up. The black sand will heat the surface of the green and raise the soil temperature to a level where growth is promoted.

Close-up view of the black sand covering the green

 

Assistant Turf Superintendent Ben Wallin using our Buffalo Blower making sure we get all the sand into the canopy of the turf.

 

After the heat we have been experiencing over the last week our greens have greened up nicely.

First glimpse of the interior of the new Sport Expo Center

By Barclay Kruse, NSC Chief Communications Officer

Yesterday, we got our first glimpse of what the interior of the NSC's new Sport Expo Center is looking like. Construction is still underway, but the project is on track to be completed in early June.

Located just feet away from the existing Schwan Center, this 21,000 square foot facility will be large enough to house sports activity like soccer and baseball training, and also mid-size consumer shows. It will also be the new home of the PUMA World Store at Schwan's USA CUP. The reason we were allowed into a construction zone is that Evan Olesh of PUMA and the staff of Eurosport were on campus to prepare for the 2012 USA CUP. Eurosport will be the new managers of all retail sales at the tournament, including the store. This space will be new for all of us, and the early verdict is that it's going to be awesome -- more centrally located and larger than then old store location in the Sports Hall.

Below: Representatives from Eurosport check out the new location for the PUMA World Store.

Below is another view of the main room at the new Sport Expo Center. This room is 18,000 square feet. The high ceiling will accommodate sport usage.

Here's a view of the lobby area, taken from where the front doors will go on the northeast corner of the building. Restrooms will be built in the back portion of this room. The doors to the right mark the entry into the big hall.

Here's another view from the lobby area, through the entry doors, and into the main hall: