The Unofficial Website of Toronto's Outdoor Skating Rinks
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You are on the [cover page] of folder [City Rinks (Home)]Welcome to The Unofficial Website of Toronto's Outdoor Skating Rinks
There's nothing like outdoor skating
A project of CELOS
Current Rink Conditions
At 8.30 am on Saturday February 4, 2012, the city website says that all rinks are operational - with two rinks listed as having their building closed (Queensway and Royalcrest). Actually all nine "minor" rinks in Etobicoke, not only these two, keep their rink change rooms closed permanently.
Please send us rink condition reports at mail@cityrinks.ca.
Harbourfront's Natrel Rink (not a municipal rink) has a webcam, which is a good gauge of ice conditions (their ice is well-maintained).
Weather Note: Warmer temperatures (and rain) are not as big of a problem for compressor-cooled rinks in February as is sun. The sun is getting higher in the sky and therefore it has more power to melt the ice. See the weather page. This winter there has been so much rain that by now, the ice is above 7 inches thick at some rinks. Ice thicker than 3 inches insulates the surface from the cooling cement slab underneath, and so the sun can melt the top very easily. Tricky for skaters.
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See also Editor's Blog Latest NewsSome history of the outdoor rinks, and details about Dufferin Rink's story. LOCKOUT OR STRIKE? The City Manager today released "take-it-or-leave-it" terms to CUPE Local 416, which may force the union to go on strike. Here is the Toronto Star story.You can find out more from these media excerpts and links. Please send us rink condition reports at mail@cityrinks.ca. Harbourfront's Natrel Rink has a good webcam that shows ice conditions. Fact: Wollman Rink in New York City's Central Park opened for the season on October 26, 2011. |
Find your outdoor rinkSee the list of rinks. Get Connected
What makes rinks run well? See our animation.
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Special ProgramsHere is the information for 2011-2012 season.
Rentals and lessons
See also Natural Ice Rinks. |
by Jutta Mason
Editor's Blog
January 12 2012
Ryerson change house, closed for good?
Three rink buildings are marked as closed. One is Royalcrest. It's one of eight "unsupervised" rinks in Etobicoke, which haven't had their buildings open in winter for many years. The only other such rink mentioned on city's website is Queensway, also an unsupervised rink. It got a large, handsome new building this year, in addition to the rink building already there. Perhaps this building was left unlocked for a few hours a day when the rink first opened for the season (late) and somebody left a mess. Now this building, too, is kept locked -- after all that money spent, there is no staff placed at the building to allow community use.
Ryerson is the third rink building listed as closed, but only as of today. In fact, this is the third year that the building has stayed closed. The rink was an award-winning design when it was built in the 1990's, but the change house got so little maintenance or even attention after amalgamation that it deteriorated into a slum. Construction next door at a university building appears to have been used as a handy reason to close it for good.
Such mis-steps characterize too much of the city's approach to its outdoor rinks. A pity.
Rules for a community rink
What is shinny hockey? A little film clip from Campbell Rink.
Our rinks are community rinks. All members of the community are welcome to skate, play hockey, or meet their friends here. Rink staff would be pleased to answer any questions you may have about the programs and policies.
Please observe the following rules so that everyone can enjoy the rink:
- Respect programs and permit times in designated areas.
- Do not use hockey sticks or pucks on the pleasure skating side.
- Leave the ice surface or any other rink area when asked to do so by staff.
- Put garbage in cans, not on the floor.
- Do not smoke in the rink house or on the ice.
- Be considerate of noise levels.
- Do not use foul, offensive or racist language.
- Do not fight or play roughly inside the building or on the rink surface.
- Do not damage anything.
In case of a serious disagreement between rink staff and a rink user about any of these rules, the staff may ask the rink user to leave the rink until the matter is discussed with the Recreation Supervisor. If the rink user refuses the staff’s request to leave the rink, a letter of trespass may result.
Ice Allocation Policy and Permits
City of Toronto website links
For tournmanents, special events, and other one-time bookings, complete a One-Time Use Application, and submit your package to the permit office.
Background Information about Toronto's Outdoor Rinks
About Rink CostsRinks By The Numbers is a Cityrinks Library section which is a start at extending our investigation of city rinks budgets (a bit over $3M per year). Much of this is a "public filing cabinet" with links to lots of material, including staff allocations, while we sort it out. Related to costs: correspondence about pricing review, 2009 season; Budget crisis 2007; and change in staffing levels and budgets 2003-2006. Here's an article from our 2007-2008 news: $250,000 more to zamboni the ice: why? See Outdoor ice maintenance costs. Read why it doesn't make sense to spend the money to keep rinks open in March: March Break Information Bulletin (pdf) and the technical background. (It does make sense to open by mid-November). Freedom of InformationHere's an idea of the type of work often involved in getting information from the city.  Women of Winter 2007-2008 |
About Running the RinksSee Correspondence 2011-2012 for insight into how ongoing issues are handled. Here's a basic orientation: Basic "rink literacy". The CELOS Outdoor Rink Report:Prepared in 2007 by CELOS, funded by the Metcalf Foundation, this report provides outlines of city rink operational issues and their possible solutions. The report is still relevant today (2010-2011).
Monday Rink Reports:This website's Monday Rinks reports, sent weekly to the Parks Director last season, list over 100 operational issues needing attention. Zanetti reports are formal submissions to the city. Climate and Outdoor Rinks:To determine the rink season (by ice condition), changes in temperature matter much less than the angle of the sun. Our weather researcher shows why: get the facts. 311 Rink Information Monitor:Read about the City's rink hotline monitor and 311 rink information monitor. More:
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Some HistoryHere's some material from the City's Archives. We've kept journals from time to time, such as News 2008-2009 - Extending Artificial Ice Skating Season 2008-2009; Injury Risk at Ice Rinks investigated. We have our rink news journals going back to 2005. Also see our collection of Media reports, some Rink Diary summaries, and this website's original rink publications. Remember the Save our rinks campaign from 2007? There was a Rink Management Board proposal in 2006. Some attempts at informing the City's Ombudsman Report cards were created by this website for the 2007-2008 season. Most Rink detail web pages have diaries to peruse. Some go back several years.  Christie Pits 1923 |
General LinksCity Skating Brochuresposted September 29, 2007 Note: These are brochures for 2011-2012, but only contain schedules for lessons, not leisure skates. "Fun guides" include all fall and winter activities. |
Local WeatherToronto weather forecasts: Other Websites |
ShareDo you have Rink Diary material to share? If you have stories, pictures, rink condition updates, a family or community event, etc. to share about your local outdoor rink, send us the material at rinkstories@cityrinks.ca, and we'll post it in the rink diaries (subject to editing of course). |
Posters and Bulletins
 Click on poster to enlarge it |
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Questions or Comments?
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Pond hockey as it's always been played: no helmets, no body armour, no checking, no slapshots - just the joy of the game
Content last modified on January 07, 2012, at 08:39 PM EST