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Winter News 2007-2008
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Latest Winter Sports News 2007-2008
From the November 2007 Newsletter:
RINK UPDATES – DUFFERIN RINK TO OPEN DECEMBER 1
Saturday December 1 is opening day this year. Rennie Rink opens the same day, and so do Mel Lastman Rink in North York, Albert Campbell Rink in Scarborough, and West Mall Rink in Etobicoke. City Hall Rink opens on November 24, and Harbourfront Rink sometime before that. (Central Park Rink in NYC has been open since October 20.) All the remaining 44 outdoor compressor-cooled rinks in Toronto will open on or around Dec.8.
It was MasterCard’s donation of $160,000 that pushed the city to reverse their original intention of keeping the rinks closed until January 1. The tax votes that passed on October 22 backed up that gift.
However, for 2008 the city will still be short about $240 million for its operating budget, so the rinks may be endangered again. (See saveourrinks.ca for detailed budget information.)
But for now, get your skates sharpened. Or if you don’t skate, come by the rink anyway, have a cup of coffee or a bowl of soup and park bread in front of the wood stove fire, and talk to your neighbours there (or enjoy yourself watching the skaters from the warm rink house). There are always books and magazines there to read, as well as some toys and kids’ books for when the little skaters (or their toddler siblings) need a break from skating.
RINK INFORMATION
The rink shinny schedule is almost identical to last year. As always, Dufferin Rink concentrates on drop-in shinny, according to a fixed age schedule. Weekdays until 3 pm shinny hockey is open to all ages, and much less crowded than evenings and weekends. The pleasure-skating side has no hockey, from 9 a.m. until the rink house closes at 9 p.m. After that, permits or special programs take over the shinny hockey side, while the pleasure-skating side has an unofficial, open-to-anyone “pond hockey” game, with shoes for goal markers.
Rink staff Dan Watson will once again offer free learn-to-play-shinny classes on Wednesdays from 10 to 11 at Dufferin Rink, and on Thursdays from 7 to 8.30 at Wallace Rink. (On those evenings there will be soup and bread at a Wallace rink-side campfire as well.) Women’s open shinny is at Dufferin Rink on Tuesdays between 9 and 11 p.m., and at Wallace Rink it runs on Thursdays from 8.30 to 10. Dan Watson will also run a free youth shinny time (ages 10 to 15), with some skills instruction and a refereed game, at Campbell Rink every Friday between 5.30 and 6.30.
For more information, call Dufferin Rink at 416 392-0913 or go to cityrinks.ca. (For more details, see “More Rink news,” below.)
MORE RINK NEWS
Last April, the little research group called CELOS presented an “Outdoor Rink Report” to City Council’s Parks and the Environment Committee. The report had a lot of inexpensive suggestions for improving the outdoor rinks. The councillors asked Parks staff to consider the report and come back in three months with a response. Three months turned into 9 months (it’s now due to be discussed in January). Meantime the budget crisis, looming for years already, broke over the city, causing havoc. To save money, the outdoor rinks were to stay closed until January 2008.
Then MasterCard gave its “opening the rinks after all: priceless” donation, soon followed by the passing of the new taxes. However, by all accounts Toronto is still short of meeting its 2008 operating budget. We’re missing another $240 million, and so it seems likely that new cuts will continue to be made.
It would be good if city management was a bit more careful when making the next round of cuts. So CELOS is continuing its budget inquiries (see web site news p.6). And city staff have begun talking to the rink researchers and other rink activists, to begin making some improvements. The list so far:
Costanza Allevato, the acting Toronto/East York Recreation manager, has assigned staff to do “facility audits” of all the rink change rooms, to check for 1. benches, 2. bulletin boards, 3. working phones, 4. rubber mats, 5. broken vending machines, 6. signage (e.g. change room, staff office) and 7. cleaning supplies. By mid-November these audits will be done and repair orders issued where necessary. “Active Living” staff Vanessa Anderson is reorganizing the city’s rink web site to be more informative and current.
Kevin Bowser, the citywide Outdoor Rinks manager, has committed to having outdoor rinks unlocked and accessible for skaters during all daylight and early evening hours even when staff are not there. He and his rink supervisors are working on placing shovels at every rink, plus training rink staff to work with rink users who want to shovel snow off the ice when the zamboni is unavailable. The rink supervisors will make sure that every rink has benches to sit on. When advised that many adult shinny players disagree with the city’s helmets-for-shinny policy (on the books for five years but not enforceable so far), Mr.Bowser agreed to look into the process of making this policy.
On the subject of the rink season corresponding to the angle of the sun (opening mid-November and closing at the end of February), Mr.Bowser said there would have to be public meetings. Since CELOS rink researchers have done energy-conservation and ice-quality research supporting a return to the earlier opening and closing, they will be working with any city councillors who want to consult with rink users, on this and other outdoor rink issues. Adding windows to windowless change rooms and staff rooms will also be on the agenda. No budget for simple things like windows and rubber skate mats doesn’t mean giving up. Other solutions can be found, as Ryan O’Neill from Jimmie Simpson Rink shows us: “I took the initiative to help with the rubber mat situation. I got in touch with Universal Services, a company that deals in rental floor mats. I asked what they do with the used mats that are no longer in circulation and offered them a way to creatively recycle them, and they were all for it. So I've got around 200 mats that I'm picking up next week.” That’s an inspiration!
WOMEN OF WINTER WANT YOUR UNUSED SKATES, AND CANADIAN TIRE $
Deirdre Norman, of the Women of Winter shinny hockey program, has been gathering skates for the new Wallace Rink skate-lending program. She and her hockey mates are also collecting donations of Canadian Tire money (or just plain money) to buy a special High Park-style zamboni tent so that Wallace Rink can house a zamboni onsite. Now that Wallace Rink has been rebuilt so nicely, it’s time to help it work better. To contact Deirdre: hockey@thewomenofwinter.com, or leave a message at 416 392-0913.