Ducks’ Home Ice Is Temporarily a Little Rinky-Dink

The Duck-St. Louis Blues game Sunday at the Arrowhead Pond almost was postponed because of unplayable ice conditions. Roughly one-eighth of an inch of the cardboard-like material that covers the surface for basketball games and other events was stuck to the ice.

The ice had been covered since the Ducks’ last game before the Olympic break Feb. 7. When arena workers pulled the covering off Sunday morning, they saw that much of it had bonded to the ice below.

“At 10 o’clock, you would have thought we would have had to cancel the game,” Duck President Tony Tavares said. “It really looked bad. We had to go to a hardware store to get big scrapers.”

Workers scrambled to remove the material in time for Sunday’s 5 p.m. opening faceoff. But chipping the material off the ice caused another problem: huge divots.

“We had to go over to Disney Ice [the Ducks’ practice rink] to bring over some snow to patch it up,” Tavares said.

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First, St. Louis defenseman Al MacInnis took out teammate Darren Turcotte with an ill-advised slash in the first period. Then, he took himself out of the game.

MacInnis injured Turcotte’s hand when he slammed his stick against it as it was resting on the top of the boards in front of the Blues’ bench. When MacInnis realized what he had done, he became so upset he went to the dressing room and began to vomit.

Neither player could return to the game.

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The Ducks returned right wing Tony Tuzzolino to Cincinnati of the American Hockey League. He made his NHL debut in a 5-2 loss last Wednesday to Vancouver. . . . The Stanley Cup will be on display today from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Pond of Anaheim. Fans can have their pictures taken with the trophy for a small fee. Proceeds go to the Disney Goals charity.