Should Minnesota Allow Sports Facility Domes? [POLL RESULTS]

Last week I asked listeners if Minnesota should ban all these sports domes, since they are bound to collapse from heavy snow falls at some point. The results aren't close to what I thought they would be!

I originally pointed out that there are a couple sports domes in the central Minnesota area. One at St. Cloud State, and the other at Sta-Fit in Sartell. The dome at SCSU is the largest in the entire region and seems to be in great shape, even with the amount of snow that came down this year. The Sta-Fit dome deflated a couple months ago from heavy snow fall and destroyed all the contents inside. They're finally able to clean it up and plan to replace it with another dome.

In 2010, our famous Metrodome had a complete roof collapse due to heavy snow. It was the beginning of the end for the Metrodome thankfully.

Closer to the Twin Cities, there are a few domes and most of them have had a collapse at some point. Shattuck-St. Mary's in Faribault just reported this last snow fall was enough to deflate their dome. Vadnais Sports Center in Vadnais Heights also had their dome go down.

There are benefits to domes, and most of those are 'cost'. You don't need to build a massive structure to put up a dome other than a foundation and a couple doorways to seal it to. When they go down there's not a lot of time to get items out of there, so they're generally considered a loss. I'm surprised insurance companies will insure domes in Minnesota since it's almost a guarantee for a claim at some point.

Here's the results of the poll when we asked "Should Minnesota ban sports domes?":

Yes: 17%
No: 83%
Not sure, but they should be un-insurable: 0%

I guess there's a good reason they are putting them up here in Minnesota...cause we like them! Maybe at some point the manufacturers will be able to figure out how to handle the weight of snow, or to make it melt away almost instantly. Then bring them on!

Filed Under: domes, winter

Categories: Central MN, Sports, Weather