Pro hockey player Jacquie Pierri, who has a masters in energy engineering, wants to find more sustainable ways to cool our arenas and fight climate change.
Pro hockey player Jacquie Pierri, who has a masters in energy engineering, wants to find more sustainable ways to cool our arenas and fight climate change.
On the ice, Jacquie Pierri is a cool defender. Spending the past 15 years patrolling the blueline in the NCAA, CWHL, SDHL, and Italy, Pierri spends as much time thinking about ice itself, rather than the game played on top of the ice.
Earning an engineering degree from Brown University, followed by a Masters in Energy Engineering with a focus on Sustainability in Sweden, Pierri has become an expert on arena refrigeration, and the impact of these systems on climate change.
“There is very clear evidence we’ve been sold an incorrect narrative about scientific disagreement about climate change,” Pierri said.
Although many prefer to ignore the impacts of hockey on society and our environment, the evidence is clear. That evidence includes the fact that refrigeration systems used not only to cool our food and mass computer systems, but also ice rinks, are one of the top contributing factors to climate change globally.
“I think hockey is an important component,” said Pierri.
“Ice rinks are really energy intensive buildings. You have to cool this massive ice pad, but you have to heat the stands, you have to heat the lobby, you have to heat hot water for the zamboni.”
Specifically, Pierri’s thesis looked at different coolant products. While many rinks across the globe utilize hydrofluorocarbons to cool ice, including in the NHL, it’s a cooling product with a 2000 to 4000 times higher global warming potential than other substances, including ammonia, which Pierri studied. Specifically, Pierri examined a new version of liquid ammonia to cool rinks.
Ammonia itself does not significantly contribute to global warming or climate change, making it the logical substance to use in arenas. The NHL however, signed a deal in 2021 with a company called Chemours, promoting the harmful hydrofluorocarbons, including in an attempt to have community rinks convert to the environmentally damaging substance.
“We have options available and proven…that have a zero global warming potential,” said Pierri. “I think that just points to the fact that the general public and also engineers who are doing the design of refrigeration systems for the NHL, don’t understand the urgency of the climate emergency, don’t understand exactly how big of a problem we’re dealing with.”
While this, according to Pierri, should be the NHL’s main environmental priority, using Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena as a model for sustainability, she believes there are other items the hockey world needs to examine.
“There is a ton of low hanging fruit of sustainability within the arenas in the NHL,” Pierri said. “When you look at waste diversion, single use plastics, offering transportation to get people to and from arenas…”
Prior to moving to Europe, Pierri played five seasons in the Canadian Women’s Hockey League with the Calgary Inferno. In Calgary, Pierri worked to find efficiencies and more sustainable pathways within the natural gas industry. The year after she moved to Sweden, the CWHL ceased operations before forming the PWHPA.
For the past two seasons, Pierri has played with Italy’s EV Bozen Eagles, winning the Italian title both seasons. She remains dedicated to the sport, while skating on the ice, and while advocating for less harmful refrigeration systems under the ice.
Pierri also acknowledged the intersecting issues of race, socioeconomics, and climate change, as the negative harm from climate change disproportionately impacts racialized communities.
As well, as the climate continues to change, and winters become warmer and shorter, an existential threat to the origins of hockey, outdoor ponds, rivers, and lakes, will grow. Pierri called this reduction in accessibility “a threat to the sport.”
“Energy costs are a huge barrier to cheap ice time, and on top of that, global warming and shorter winter seasons are pushing more players inside,” said Pierri. “Pond hockey is becoming less and less available.”
Whether it’s through refrigerants with zero global warming potential, waste reduction in arenas, and a shift to stop burning fossil fuels, Pierri is urging action as climate change continues to sit as the single greatest threat on earth.
“I don’t want to be alarmist, but I think there is reason for rational alarm.”
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