If I think back, there were a few differences between small rink - large rink regarding competitions. Mainly, the size of practice ice and being able to deal with that. I know my daughter FREAKED on practice ice with over 20 skaters all skating! In fact, for the longest time, that was the worst part of the competition for her. She didn't know how to maneuver and all of the other skaters basically just scared the living &%@#$ out of her! I don't know how to put that more eloquently!!! How did we overcome this??? Well, she went to a camp and basically had to learn how to skate on crowded sessions! It worked, not necessarily what she went to camp for but hey, whatever works right!
We don't have a large skating population at our home rink and the sessions are never really crowded. Some are more than others but in the grand scheme of things, it's pretty light. When my daughter is preparing for a competition, her coach has her skate her program on the most crowded session we have to simulate competition practice ice. It's something that started years ago and it's just stuck. Her goal when she was younger was to jump even if skaters were close to her. Now, this was for someone (my daughter) who thought she needed at least half the rink empty in order to jump! HAHA
Every competition is a learning experience for us, still! Just because your skater is skating against kids from a "large rink" doesn't necessarily mean they are better! It's intimidating sure, but sometimes a smaller rink has it's benefits.