Ice Hockey Arena Unlock Guide (Cities: Skylines)

Ice Hockey Arena Screenshot in Cities: Skylines
Ice Hockey Arena
DLC Snowfall
Building Type Unique Building
Level/Category Winter
Build Cost ₡250,000
Upkeep Cost ₡4,800/week
Milestone Required Boom Town
Entertainment Value 125
Noise Pollution 20
Visitor Capacity 360

The Ice Hockey Arena is a Winter unique building from the Cities: Skylines Snowfall DLC.

To unlock it, you need to do a few things:

  • Play on a winter map
  • Build 5 Boiler Stations
  • Build 5 Geothermal Heating Plants
  • Reach the Boom Town milestone (650-2,600 population, depending on the map)

Once you’ve accomplished these, you’ll be able to build the Ice Hockey Arena from the “Winter” tab of the Unique Buildings menu for ₡250,000.

A boiler station (left) and a geothermal heating plant. / Cities: Skylines
A boiler station (left) and a geothermal heating plant.

All Winter Maps

The following official winter maps come with the Snowfall DLC:

  • Frosty Rivers
  • Icy Islands
  • Winter Hills
  • Frozenshire
  • Snowy Coast
User-created winter maps on the Steam Workshop. / Cities: Skylines

You can also find user-created winter maps on the Steam Workshop.

Building Boiler Stations and Geothermal Heating Plants

Boiler stations and geothermal heating plants provide heating to your citizens when temperatures are low.

SCROLL
Building Unlocked at Build Cost Upkeep Cost Heating Output
Boiler Station Boom Town ₡60,000 ₡640/week 120 MW
Geothermal Heating Plant Boom Town ₡55,000 ₡480/week 80 MW

Without them, your citizens will need to heat their homes using electricity (causing a greater demand on your power system).

Here’s how to build and use them:

Step 1: Creating your Buildings

You’ll find them in the Heating tab of the Water, Sewage, and Heating menu.

The boiler station in the build menu. / Cities: Skylines
The boiler station in the build menu.
The geothermal heating plant. / Cities: Skylines
The geothermal heating plant.

Step 2: Upgrading your Water Pipes

You’ll need to upgrade your existing water pipe network to distribute heating.

Select Water Pipe with Heating Pipes, then use the upgrade tool on your existing water pipes.

Use the upgrade tool to switch your standard water pipes to ones that can deliver heating. / Cities: Skylines
Use the upgrade tool to switch your standard water pipes to ones that can deliver heating.

Of course, don’t forget to connect your new boiler station or geothermal heating plant to your pipe network using upgraded water pipes.

For this unlock, you’ll need five boiler stations and five geothermal heating plants.

Tip: Creating a Restore Point to Unlock Early

Depending on the size of your city, 5 boiler stations and 5 geothermal heating plants may be far more than you currently need.

If you have the spare cash to build the 10 buildings, but don’t want to spend all that weekly upkeep for heating that you don’t need, you can simply create a save point to revert back to.

Step 1: Create a save point. You can name it “before heating plants” or something so you know which one it is.

Step 2: Make sure autosave is off.

Step 3: Build the 5 boiler stations and 5 geothermal heating plants to unlock the Ice Hockey Arena.

Step 4: Close the game without saving.

This works because once unlocked, unique buildings remain unlocked across your different saves. So you’ll still be able to build the Ice Hockey Arena when you go back to your “before” save.

Liz Villegas

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Liz is a writer and photographer with a love for building and strategy games. Her spare time is often split between lifting, reading, drawing, annoying her dog Mr. Porky Butt, and squinting at stat tables on the wiki pages of whatever game she's currently playing.

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