I stumbled across a hockey site that has a few rink reviews online. They are out of date and not completely accurate, but it was a good effort.
http://www.hockeycat.com/rinks.htmlBased on how many of us travel with skates to check out rinks, I was thinking that a similar site for figure skating would be useful. We can find rinks through arenamaps.com, but as Agnes points out, sometimes the webpage outlives the rink itself or skating season.
I looked at their review for SkateNation in Virginia; that's a rink that I've stopped at and even bought stuff in the pro shop. I felt their review was good and accurate.
The categories the site is using include:
Amenities, Locker Rooms (we might not need, but good to know), Seating, Ice, Cleanliness, Pro Shop, Overall, Directions, Leagues, Website, HockeyCat Rating: x.x paws (out of 5)
I think their rating is really cute - "paws" instead of "points," *chuckles*
We dont' really need the "Leagues" category, but we would need other criteria, such as: Freestyle (high/low/mixed), Skating Club, Skating Programs, Overhead Harness, Off-ice training, etc.
I think the snack bars need to be reviewed too.
What would be a good survey form to create for reviewing ice rinks from a figure skating perspective?