At Lawson Ice Arena, the heat generated at the evaporation coils of the arena's ice machine is transferred to water circulating through a closed-loop system. The heated water is sent to a heat recovery unit. The heat recovery unit is a large, enclosed insulated tank filled with circulated pool water. The heated water piping from the ice machine is coiled through the heat recovery unit tank where transference takes place. The circulating pool water in the unit absorbs the heat from the ice machine before being returned to the pool. The piped water from the ice machine is alternately cooled by this process. The benefits of the system are that the pool gets essentially free heating, the ice machine condenser gets free cooling and the ice machine refrigerator pump operates more efficiently reducing operational costs.