Carbon monoxide blamed for hockey camp issues

HAZEN, N.D. (AP) — Some participants became ill at a hockey camp where carbon monoxide levels tested unusually high, their parents and an athletic director said.

Officials have not directly linked the illnesses to the carbon monoxide, which in rinks elsewhere has been connected to fumes from ice-resurfacing machines, but people at the camp suspect the potentially fatal gas is to blame.

“I’m sure it was CO because almost every kid had headaches,” said parent Scott Karsky of Dickinson. “We had kids puking in my group.”

Karsky said he pulled three players from last week’s camp after they vomited.

The rink was tested for carbon monoxide after complaints from parents, players and coaches, Hazen winter sports director Joe Amundson said.

The private company that performed the testing declined to comment, but Karsky said CO levels were about 100 parts per million before the Zamboni cleared the ice and double that afterward.

Ron Kleinsasser, a service department foreman with Montana-Dakota Utilities Co. in Dickinson, said a CO level of 200 ppm is “a bad thing.”

“Anyone shouldn’t be in that level, for very long periods of time anyway,” he said.

About 80 players ranging in age from 4 to 18 attended the camp; the only ones who got sick were the Dickinson athletes, Amundson said. He said the rink was evacuated until its CO levels were deemed safe.

The rink plans to add ventilation and buy a carbon monoxide detector to prevent similar incidents in the future, Amundson said.

Cory Portner, director of membership for USA Hockey, said no federal laws regulate air quality in hockey arenas.

“We certainly encourage testing on a proactive level as opposed to reactive,” he said.

Tags: carbon monoxide, sports, youth, hockey, illness, hazen, camp