Location

1500 Gulleden Drive, Mississauga. See Satellite map

Phone: 905-615-4630

Schedule

See Schedule tab

Burnhamthorpe Community Centre Outdoor Covered Rink, Mississauga.

Rink change area:Two change rooms, well lit, clean. One of the change rooms has no lock on the toilet. One change room has a snack bar room attached, but this has been changed to a staff room.

Staff: There are rink monitors during weekend public skating times, not otherwise. Maintenance staff is shared with the next-door arena. All staff can do all the rink tasks, similar to Harbourfront's outdoor rinks and the Toronto board of management arenas (but different from Toronto's municipal outdoor rinks, where rink staff have very narrow job descriptions).

Maintenance: The rink has a 75 HP compressor, and measures 100 feet by 100 feet. A comparable-size single-pad outdoor rink in Toronto would have 100 HP. For ice-resurfacing, the zamboni is shared with the next-door arena. When snow drifts in, it's cleared by the zamboni, not by a plough.

Free public skating and open shinny hockey: Mainly weekday daytimes (10 hrs a week pleasure-skating, 13.5 hours shinny hockey). Prime time pleasure-skating is 7 hours on weekends. There is no prime-time public shinny hockey.

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Comments about this rink: e-mail us at [email protected].

Opening and closing dates:

Very similar to non-covered rinks. For example, in 2010, this rink opened on Nov.22 and closed on March 13, 2011.

Rink Diary 2010 - 2011

We went to see a covered rink for ourselves. This was the day after a biggish snowfall, and we were surprised to see four rink staff shovelling out the snow on the walkway between the changerooms and the rink. We weren't expecting snow under the roof. The rink manager, John Pogue, was there, and he said -- remember, snow blows sideways too!

Which is certainly true.

He told us that after the big snowfall, the zamboni driver worked from 6.30 to 10 a.m., taking off about ten loads. Then the rink re-opened.

That surprised us too. The same snowfall was cleared off quite a few un-roofed rinks in Toronto by about the same time. The main difference was that the city's rinks were ploughed out, whereas at the covered rink the snow was taken off solely by their zamboni.

street parking allowed by the rink

lots of room for rink information

The rink has clear information, readily accessible, posted on the fence and the bulletin board. We were surprised to read there that the rink season is exactly the same length as Harbourfront's Natrel Rink and the scheduled season for fourteen other city outdoor rinks. Opening in the low-sun month of November is no problem for uncovered rinks, but March is a real challenge. We asked the manager: "how come your covered rink doesn't stay open for March break -- surely it could, with the roof keeping the sun off?" He said -- "there's not the same demand for skating as in the earlier winter." That's exactly our experience with the city's outdoor rinks -- by the time March comes, even it it's cold and overcast and the ice is excellent, attendance drops right off. People are just tired of winter.

clearing the snow on the walkway

free skating 10 am to noon weekdays

There were parents and pre-schoolers at the rink, maybe some students too, taking advantage of the free pleasure-skating time between 10 a.m. and noon. The two small change rooms were clean, brightly lit and utilitarian. One of them has a hatch with a metal curtain. The manager said it used to be a snack bar but not any more. There is no explicitly social space -- the rink is set up for skating, not sitting and talking.

plexiglass barrier instead of chain link (but a little scratched)

roof underside

There are plastic sound baffles hanging from the steel roof girders. The manager explained that the rink roof used to funnel noise into the neighboring houses, but the baffles have helped a lot.

sound baffles muffle neighbourhood noise

side view, yellow sign announces video surveillance

The rink had a sign saying it was built in 1978, but the roof was only added seven years ago. In Mississauga, the rinks have to cover their costs, so there is no prime time drop-in shinny hockey at all (only during daytime weekday hours), but there are seven hours of free public pleasure-skating on weekends. Otherwise, the rink is used by permit groups. To find more customers, Burnhamthorpe Rink has developed a powerpoint presentation

Views of the rink

Notes

Rink Diary 2010 - 2011

We went to see a covered rink for ourselves. This was the day after a biggish snowfall, and we were surprised to see four rink staff shovelling out the snow on the walkway between the changerooms and the rink. We weren't expecting snow under the roof. The rink manager, John Pogue, was there, and he said -- remember, snow blows sideways too!

Which is certainly true.

He told us that after the big snowfall, the zamboni driver worked from 6.30 to 10 a.m., taking off about ten loads. Then the rink re-opened.

That surprised us too. The same snowfall was cleared off quite a few un-roofed rinks in Toronto by about the same time. The main difference was that the city's rinks were ploughed out, whereas at the covered rink the snow was taken off solely by their zamboni.

street parking allowed by the rink

lots of room for rink information

The rink has clear information, readily accessible, posted on the fence and the bulletin board. We were surprised to read there that the rink season is exactly the same length as Harbourfront's Natrel Rink and the scheduled season for fourteen other city outdoor rinks. Opening in the low-sun month of November is no problem for uncovered rinks, but March is a real challenge. We asked the manager: "how come your covered rink doesn't stay open for March break -- surely it could, with the roof keeping the sun off?" He said -- "there's not the same demand for skating as in the earlier winter." That's exactly our experience with the city's outdoor rinks -- by the time March comes, even it it's cold and overcast and the ice is excellent, attendance drops right off. People are just tired of winter.

clearing the snow on the walkway

free skating 10 am to noon weekdays

There were parents and pre-schoolers at the rink, maybe some students too, taking advantage of the free pleasure-skating time between 10 a.m. and noon. The two small change rooms were clean, brightly lit and utilitarian. One of them has a hatch with a metal curtain. The manager said it used to be a snack bar but not any more. There is no explicitly social space -- the rink is set up for skating, not sitting and talking.

plexiglass barrier instead of chain link (but a little scratched)

roof underside

There are plastic sound baffles hanging from the steel roof girders. The manager explained that the rink roof used to funnel noise into the neighboring houses, but the baffles have helped a lot.

sound baffles muffle neighbourhood noise

side view, yellow sign announces video surveillance

The rink had a sign saying it was built in 1978, but the roof was only added seven years ago. In Mississauga, the rinks have to cover their costs, so there is no prime time drop-in shinny hockey at all (only during daytime weekday hours), but there are seven hours of free public pleasure-skating on weekends. Otherwise, the rink is used by permit groups. To find more customers, Burnhamthorpe Rink has developed a powerpoint presentation