1
Rink Roundups / Re: Updates to list of ice rinks within about 100 miles of Washington, DC?
« Last post by Query on Today at 12:21:11 PM »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.?
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.?