As most of you probably know by now we have lost one of our own in the past week. Dave Manske passed away from cancer after a long battle. He will be greatly missed by all of us as a member of the Rice Lake Curling Club but I thought it would be good to let all of you know how much a part he played in our club and in others as well.
Dave became the main man for me as the ice keeper about 10 years ago as he took over the maintenance of the compressors at the club. This in itself was a great undertaking but was only a small part of what he did for us. When we started to look at the possibility of putting in our dehumidification system several years ago he showed his knowledge and interest in the project and pretty much took it on himself to design and work with the manufacturer to get us the right system for our building and I am sure you would agree he was successful. He also completely installed the system and duct work for that system with the help of the other guys that worked with him at Pauls Sheet Metal. This was all done on voluntary time and saved us all a great deal of money.


A few years ago he started talking to me about saving the heat off the compressors that we were releasing into the air out side to bring it in and heat our ice area. He designed, and with the help of the guys from Pauls’ again completely installed this system for us as well. We now heat our ice area for free due to this innovative idea. The Manske heat recovery system now is going into several other clubs in the state and he will be recognized in the curling world along with Rice Lake with how we are able to change the way other clubs do things for the betterment of curling. This system saves us about $3,000.00 per year in gas bills and it only cost us $4,500.00 to install. He also got us a rebate off of the 4500 for $1,500.00 so the system pays for itself in one year.

So as you can see Dave will be missed for more than his love of our game. I will miss him deeply as a friend, a great curling competitor and as a great resource for our ice making crew.

Larry Sharp
President RLCC
Ice keeper