A rink attendant helped save a 56-year-old hockey player when he went into cardiac arrest at the Earl Armstrong Arena in Ottawa's east end Thursday afternoon.

A longtime arena employee, Dana Clarke, performed CPR and then used a defibrillator on the man, according to the Ottawa paramedic service.

Clarke had just recently been trained to use the defibrillator, paramedics said. By the time paramedics showed up, the man was awake and talking, they said.

He was further stabilized and transferred to a local emergency department where he was listed in stable condition, paramedics said.

All city arenas and pools have a publicly accessible defibrillator onsite.

The name of the cardiac-arrest victim was not released.