Overviews

posted November 30, 2007

Frequently Asked Questions, Opinion, and Toronto Rinks History are quick reads about Toronto's outdoor rinks.

We track some of the dialogs with City staff regarding operational and management issues that arise regarding the rinks. See Problems And Followup.

What Rink Users Say

Read what skaters have to say about Toronto's rinks.

Save our rinks, fall 2007

posted November 30, 2007

In the fall of 2007 City Hall for a time decided to delay outdoor rink opening until January, to save money in a budget crunch. We joined with other Toronto citizens, and organized a save our rinks campaign, and alternatives. In the process we collected comments from Councillors, and rink users. Eventually Mastercard bailed the city out with a $160,000 gift. But we're worried that the fight isn't over yet.

Fixing problems

posted December 03, 2007, updated December 2008

See our Reports section for reports that help to disseminate information about rinks issues.

For example in Problems and Followup, we record correspondence with the city about maintenance issues.

In Depth

Outdoor Rinks And Weather explains why it would be better to open rinks from mid November to end of February, rather than December to mid March (it's the angle of the sun).

posted November 30, 2007

Making rinks work: CELOS has created a booklet containing over 10 years experience in making rinks work. Hint: campfires, good food, and family times help. What Needs Fixing and Cheap Design tracks some details of what could make some of the rinks better.

posted December 2008

Rinks by the numbers is a start at extending our investigation of city rinks budgets. Right now it's a "public filing cabinet" where we link any material we can find that can help us figure out rink costs, including staff allocations.

posted November 30, 2007

Rinks by the numbers also gets into some information about Toronto's Parks, Forestry and Recreation department. For example we found that in the last 10 years or so PFR's operating budget has increased an inflation adjusted $60M, with an increase of over 700 employees. Yet it's hard to see the benefits on the ground.

Women's hockey Read more >>

Initiatives

posted November 30, 2007

Management Board Idea: In 2006 City rink staff let the ice at Dufferin Rink and others get 6 inches thick. It's only supposed to be (at most) 2 inches thick, for compressors to work well. A fight ensued. There was even a meeting about having a Management Board take over the rinks. Some useful information about the idea was collected, and you never know...

posted November 30, 2007

Rinks Management and Maintenance: With all the uncertainty, CELOS is compiling lots of information:

• Rinks Maintenance and Maintenance issues like refrigerant safety and ice thickness
• Rink Reports
• Problems and Follow-up
• Weather Summaries

Freedom of Information

The City of Toronto is often reluctant to share information with its citizens. In those cases we rely on the Province's Access to Information legislation to obtain critical information from the city. Here are some of the requests that we are pursuing, as tracked in our Freedom Of Information section:

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

Reports

The friends of city rinks (formally through CELOS) wants to do what it can to preserve and promote what we think is a precious resource - the 49 public outdoor rinks jointly owned by the citizens of Toronto. One way of doing this is by assembling and distributing a variety of reports to explain issues, and highlight challenges to the outdoor rinks community (including users, and staff at Parks, Foresty, and Recreation). Here are the reports that we currently publish. reads more>>

Home Page Announcements

Read more >>

Archives

A collection of material that is outdated, but that we want to keep for the record.

• Archives

The Women Of Winter annual Shinny Tournament at Dufferin Grove Park Friday Feb. 6 and Sat. Feb. 7 2009. Find out more or sign up >>