Not so many as it appears. I'm pretty sure some of the rinks I've listed have disappeared since Covid, or were already gone. And many are seasonal, and are currently closed. Some stadiums are only ice rinks for special events, like professional hockey games.

Fort Dupont and Mount Vernon are closed for construction. Dr. John J. McMullen (Annapolis), said they had no public sessions, and that I could only enter freestyle sessions with a coach! (I'm not certain they meant that the coach had to be with me, but that was my impression.) I'm sure there are others.

I know a lovely lady who lives near Baltimore who skates south of the Beltway. In fact there are a lot of people who are driving hours. And area traffic jams are worsening. Prices went up, and pre-registration requirements often added, to handle Covid-19 health concerns. Covid is being dealt with better now, but concerns, prices and pre-registration remain.

And I included rinks well outside the DC metro area.

(A lot of the pro shops have closed or merged too.)

A lot of sports and recreational facilities closed with Covid, and never re-opened. Others took that time to start reconstruction: ice rinks have a finite lifetime, and some were built before people had learned to deal with frost heave and erosion problems under ice rinks by heating the underlying structure, or used structures that weren't strong enough.

Private ice rinks never were a particularly great business investment. Most sports and recreational facilities need government and/or private subsidy. It's difficult to re-establish those relationships in a short time period, and some sponsors are out of business or in economic trouble.

Global and regional warming don't help.

To what extent have the same things affected rinks outside the U.S.?

I maintain a bunch of web pages on a non-professional basis, and have let them go far out of date, including this list:

http://alltherinks.com which remaps to http://mgrunes.com/dcicerinks.html
and an overall map:
http://mgrunes.com/dcicerinksmap.html

I plan to update this list over the next year or so, by contacting each rink.

E.g., I recently found out that Tucker Road has re-opened, and that there are rinks in Leesburg & Springfield, VA.

If you know of any rinks that I left out, or that have permanently closed, or anything is wrong, please say so. I would love the rink name & city, a phone number or web page. Also whether you have verified it is open, or is expected to open, within the next year or two.

You don't have to give me complete info. But what I try to list is in the NOTES section:

Facility Name with website link
  Social media page with link
If needed: Note: I have not verified rink is open or will re-open.
If needed: Note: Rink is seasonal; also depends on weather.
If needed: Note: Rink is Seasonal: Open around Christmas
Address with map link
Phone: ?
If not on website: Session schedule (link and/or phone for public, freestyle, dance sessions)
Classes not on rink's website: (link and/or phone)
Non-hockey Club(s): ?

I don't list hockey clubs & sessions because most rinks list them on their own websites.
Many skating clubs offer their own skating sessions and classes, in addition to those offered by rink - I haven't listed those here -- see club's website. Many of these require that you belong to the club.

Thanks!

P.S. Many rinks don't keep their web pages up to date. Some have a social media page they keep more up to date, which I try to list. (Perhaps the web designer owns the site registration, and charges a lot of money to update it. Not unique to ice rinks - many organizations run into that. If they don't pay enough, some web designers let the web page address lapse, remap to a competitor or an inappropriate site.) So call ahead before visiting a rink you haven't recently visited! Also ask whether you must pre-register.

USFS doesn't want people attempting figure skating stuff in blades that aren't meant for figure skating. Flat = speed skater. Concave = unable to skate on edges, which is what figure skating depends on. Also, have you seen anyone try to skate with a concave? I have, in LTS. Never had their blades sharpened and were on a factory 'sharpening.' In other words, can't skate.

Blades with circular toe picks? That seems to me designed to cause faceplants. Toe picks are sharp for very specific reasons; namely, to assist with those jumps and spins.

As for blade technology, people are working on similar things. All that stuff you listed isn't illegal, but the technology is not there for wide implementation - or is downright impossible without making skates too heavy to wear. Related, check out Blade Science: https://www.blade.science

There are augmented reality programs out there. Some countries, I think Japan, uses those in their newscasts to calculate speed, jump distance, jump height, etc. It wouldn't surprise me if those kind of programs are being used in national-level training centers.

Local competitions, at least in the US, are required to follow USFS rules. USFS rules can be different than ISU rules. ISU rules are applied at international competitions and in the US, at the Junior and Senior levels. Because those are the levels that compete internationally. If you're ever interested, a good examination between the two is the difference in how Adult skating is handled nationally vs the two Adult ISU competitions. The rules are different for program lengths, allowed elements, etc. The US has a large enough adult skating community to have our own national program. Most other countries do not.


Because artificial materials do not breathe like natural ones. Its why hockey padding stinks so badly. It's made out of foam, which can't be laundered. Same for boots like Edea. The materials absorb odor and do not release them like natural materials. A lot of the internal padding in skates depends on what brand and boot you purchase and how far you're customizing if that's the route chosen.

I have no idea what products work and what don't. What skaters choose to use - or not - is their business. The best way to combat smells is to open the skate up and take it out of the bag. Too many people don't do that, which is why some skates can stink a lot worse than others.

I vaguely remember it being against USFS rules to use hockey boots (or blades) for tests - is that out of date? I might try to pass USFS Pre-Bronze skating skills.

Perhaps composite hockey skates stink more than leather figure skates.

Hockey blades are allowed for skating skills tests, according to the current rulebook:
6037 Skate blades: Figure skating blades used during competitions and tests (or hockey skate blades used during skating skills
tests or skating skills events at competitions) must be sharpened to produce a flat to concave cross section without change to the width of the blade as measured between the two edges. However, a slight tapering or narrowing of the cross section of the blade is permitted.


In my years of assisting with skate sharpening, any non-leather material stinks to high heaven if not taken proper care of. Padding in the boots, the material the boots are made out of, the socks stuffed into the toes to wear again... Yes, your hockey boots will hold more funk than a leather skating boot.