About Rink Costs

Rinks 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 Information

Here's an idea of the type of work often involved in getting information from the city.

• Background To 2006 Rink Closure Proposal
• Arena Retrofit Project Costs
• Cost Of Running Outdoor Rinks

Women of Winter 2007-2008

About Running the Rinks

The City of Toronto is always behind Harbourfront in getting their rinks open. Here's why: Toronto Ice Rink Story The science is there, the history is there (pre-amalgamation), professionals say it can be done, Harbourfront is doing it, even volunteers have done it. Yet Toronto can't seem to manage the fundamentals of ice making.

See Correspondence 2011-2012 for insight into how ongoing issues are handled.

Here's a basic orientation: Basic "rink literacy".

Read up on the fundamentals of ice making.

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).

• Part One: Season, Hours, Ice, Design, Communication, Food
• Part Two: Attendance, Permits, Helmets, Staff, Community, Appendices
• see the pdf

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:

• Some management and maintenance, and problems and follow-up notes
• Some City Staff reports which shed some light on City management approaches.
• What went wrong: why outdoor rinks opened late in November 2009.
• Rink correspondence with the City, about why outdoor rinks opened late in November 2010.

Some History

Rinks Chapters

Here'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