Officials with the City of Calgary have taken steps to block off a hockey arena in the southeast because of a potential risk that the building’s roof could collapse under the weight of snowfall.

Following the collapse of a section of the roof at the Fairview Arena this past February, the city says a review was undertaken to discover dangers at other facilities throughout the city.

On November 30, the city says it received the report on Jack Setters Arena, located at 2086 69 Avenue S.E., that told them that a large accumulation of snow on the roof of the building could result in a collapse.

After the City Safety Codes Officer read the report and performed a visual inspection, they issued a ‘close pending mitigation’ notice for the arena.

Following a consultation with the building operators, the Millcan Ogden Community Association, the arena has been temporarily closed starting December 2.

All facility users have been notified about the closure and the community association is working with the city to make alternate arrangements.

Rick Smith, president of the community association, says they're disappointed to hear about the closure.

"We do a lot of work to operate this building and we have a lot of groups that use it. We're pleased to provide recreation services to hockey players, kids, figure skaters and all kinds of things. We have a great program here."

He says that he understands the city's concerns.

"With the oncoming winter, they are concerned with the snow load adding to weight to the roof structure and causing some failures."

Smith says that they will be holding a board meeting on Monday and then move forward with communications with the city.

"We don't know what's going to happen. We've got a ton of questions. We've got staff that we've got to deal with. We've got an operating ice plant in there now, so it has to be cared for. Some decisions have to be made if the ice can stay in or it needs to come out."

Officials will also work with the community association to address the structural issues and create a timeline on when the facility can be reopened.

Marco Civitarese, Calgary's acting director of Building Services, says that inspectors took a much closer look at Jack Setters during the review process because of some of the factors in the truss design.

"The engineers identified issues in the steel webs. This is a different roof, first of all, from Fairview. It's a steel structure and it's called a bow string truss. That, in itself, has some attention drawn to it. The age was the second factor here."

He says that the recent snowfall is also a concern too, particularly about the weight it presents to the building.

As for the different way to resolve the issue, he suggests that they could set up a tent structure on the roof, supported by air, to alleviate the weight of snow on the compromised roof structure.

Civitarese says that there are no other arenas with issues at this time.

Back on February 20, emergency crews responded to the Fairview Arena after a section of the building’s roof collapsed onto the rink inside.

The city hasn’t released an exact cause for the collapse of the roof, but the building manager and a city inspector found that there was a failure in the roof by some of the trusses, likely because of the weight of snow.