Staff: On-site zamboni staff, a building attendant in the daytime and in the evenings, and a rink guard in the evenings (and weekends).

Helmet use: sometimes enforced for shinny players - enforced for leisure skaters under six

Cityrinks.ca position paper: are helmets overrated for concussions? Should shinny hockey players be forced to wear a helmet?

Maintenance: Zamboni, run by on-site staff. Ice maintenance has been contentious. The jury is still out on this one. Zamboni drivers are quite engaged and familiar with rink users.

An Open Letter to Skate Toronto

Ms. Anna Morrell
Community Recreation Programme
Toronto East York
Parks, Forestry and Recreation
City of Toronto

Dear Anna:

Re: Impact of New Scheduling on Sunday and Holiday Adult Hockey Participation

It was good to meet you prior to the re-opening of Ramsden. We regret sending you a complaint about the Ramsden rink scheduling when you are just in the process of assuming your new position of Supervisor. We wish you well as you take on your new responsibilities.

We are writing on behalf of many of the players present, perhaps virtually all of those present, in the 10:00 am to noon adult shinny hockey section on Saturday, November 30. They had just learned that the Sunday morning, 10:00 am – noon adult section has been severely altered. In a phone conversation, on December 2nd, Heather Kerr was good enough to offer what, at first blush, may be some valid reasons for the changes: complaints from others about inadequate time for their participation, goals of the recreation programme, etc. I did not offer any spirited challenges to her declaration that the Recreation Department will not change the schedule because I did not have a complete understanding of what is going on. This is due, only in part, because the schedule handed out at the rink differed from the information on the Skate Toronto website. (That a few folks have found the website not easy-to-navigate is not a subject for discussion in this letter.)

Whatever the valid Recreation Department reasons for the schedule changes are, we believe, none of the players in the above Saturday and Sunday morning sessions, anticipated significant changes. And, to be frank, no one from the City, certainly no one involved in the arbitrary changes to the scheduling consulted with those who have, for years, played during these time periods. And so, because we were not consulted, we have decided to put on the record what we believe may be the impact of the changes on our participation.

Background

Looking back on old schedules, the 10:00 am to noon adult shinny on Saturday and Sundays have been a fixture at Ramsden for at least 30 years. Many of the current players have played in these time slots for more than a decade. The principal writer behind this letter, for more than 30 years .

The significant schedule change has now been made in the wake of a full year’s shutdown of Ramsden for reasons that have yet to be adequately explained. The feared loss (to be explained below) of, arguably, half of the time enjoyed in the past adds insult to the shutdown injury.

The real or potential impact

The Saturday and Sunday morning adult hockey sessions, 10:00 – 12:00 pm have been extremely popular, sometimes with 10 or 12 players waiting on each bench. The scheduled cut-back in the Sunday session will cause the usual Sunday players who enjoy adults only hockey to migrate to the Saturday time slot aggravating the overcrowding problem;

Many players who have frequented the Sunday time period will, when confronted with (a) a session that starts at 9:00 am as opposed to 10:00 am and (b) a play period of only 45 minutes, will decide the travel and other effort for 45 minutes is not worth it and will stay away;

In the past, at least once or twice, even three times a season, there has been a snow fall or the Zamboni has broken down. Players who were the first to arrive that day have been confronted with snow on the ice that has not been cleared. Because your staff has been instructed not to release shovels and because the large scrapers that served so well for many years have been spirited away (an issue I discussed with Peter White), shovels have been brought from the homes of skaters and the ice has been cleared by our group. Unfortunately, there is no incentive to pitch in and do this work when most of a 45 minute session would be consumed by the shovelling. Of course, no following group would benefit from the voluntary ice cleaning either.

Players believe that “Shinny (All Ages)” will bring children onto the ice that will change the pace of the game experienced in the earlier 45 minute adult session. Hence the loss to us of the 10:00 am to Noon adult hockey will not be offset by the “All Ages” category. While bringing children onto the ice is a good thing, understand that the net result of doing so in this time period may destroy the Sunday adult shinny. (We hasten to add that in the past when youngsters, younger than 19, have shown up, more often than not, they have been allowed to play.)

In any event, even if Shinny (All Ages) offered a partial offset to the lost Sunday morning adult hockey, the All Ages category will disappear in January and February due to the activities that have been scheduled.

Anna, Ramsden is a community centre and our Sunday morning adult players constitute a small community within a larger whole. The bottom line is that your scheduled changes may damage or even terminate our Sunday morning hockey group. Last year, we lost the entire season. This year, because many of us only play on weekends, as one 20 year regular weekend player noted, when this “All ages” experiment unfolds, weekend only players will end up losing the equivalent of half their season this year via lost Sunday playing time.

Perhaps you will be kind enough to provide us with a written rationale for these changes including numbers of and details about the complaints you say you have received. We will distribute your answers. You may address some of the complaints the skate programme has received via the changes on Sunday morning but any such remedies will be accompanied by a serious negative impact on our longstanding Sunday morning group.

Reducing the adverse impact of your schedule changes

The Rosedale rink schedules adult hockey to start at 8:00 am on Saturdays. Dedicated adult players show up at 7:30 am for their two hour session beginning at 8:00 am. There are no insurmountable reasons why Sunday mornings at Ramsden could not be scheduled for adult hockey at 8:00 am starting on Sunday, January 5, 2020. We suspect that the majority of the regular turn-out on Sunday mornings, once informed of the change, would utilize the 8:00 – 9:45 time period.

Would budgetary issues arise? We suspect not. Your department has budgeted for rinks being opened until March 22, 2020. Yet, as Parks staff knows, there is not a snowballs chance in you-know-where that the weather will allow ice to be maintained to anywhere near March 20th. Parks has difficulty maintaining ice until the end of February. So money saved at the end of the schedule can easily be applied to paying staff for a one hour earlier start on Sundays in 2020.

We have a number of questions about the holiday schedule, a schedule that appears to reduce adult shinny times from what we enjoyed in earlier years. We will raise these issues in a separate communication. Meanwhile, we will look forward to your response.

Dear Mayor Tory:

RE: Closure of the Ramsden Park skating pads for the season

I am writing on behalf of hockey players and pleasure skaters who are among Friends of Ramsden to express our disappointment about the closure of the Ramsden Park skating pads for the 2018-2019 skating season. Moreover, we are deeply dismayed by the lack of transparency related to the reasons for the closure.

Many Torontonians, including skaters who come from a considerable distance from Ramsden, looked forward to the opening of this recreation centre at the end of November. To our considerable disappointment, we discovered that it was closed for the season. This is not a closure for a little over three months for many of us. This amounts to a closure for an entire season or year.

Mayor Tory, Ramsden is not just an opportunity to play a little hockey or to take our kids for a skate. We have a community here. The social engagement, the physical exercise, the opportunity to be out-of-doors in the middle of often grey winter days, all combine to make Ramsden special.

Skaters having to move to other rinks, often distant from public transit, is seldom an acceptable response to closed skating pads. With hockey for example, players travelling to other already overcrowded rinks where 20 players are shoehorned into players’ benches often leave extremely disappointed with the lack of playing time. Others look at the numbers already present and walk or drive away.

For these reasons and more, this loss raises a number of questions about the equipment malfunction, not all of which may be answered by the freedom of information inquiry that we have just filed. Perhaps your staff can do some research and provide some answers.

Critical mechanical issues with the refrigeration system have resulted in the unexpected closure of the rink for this year

An Open Letter to Skate Toronto

Ms. Anna Morrell
Community Recreation Programme
Toronto East York
Parks, Forestry and Recreation
City of Toronto

Dear Anna:

Re: Impact of New Scheduling on Sunday and Holiday Adult Hockey Participation

It was good to meet you prior to the re-opening of Ramsden. We regret sending you a complaint about the Ramsden rink scheduling when you are just in the process of assuming your new position of Supervisor. We wish you well as you take on your new responsibilities.

We are writing on behalf of many of the players present, perhaps virtually all of those present, in the 10:00 am to noon adult shinny hockey section on Saturday, November 30. They had just learned that the Sunday morning, 10:00 am – noon adult section has been severely altered. In a phone conversation, on December 2nd, Heather Kerr was good enough to offer what, at first blush, may be some valid reasons for the changes: complaints from others about inadequate time for their participation, goals of the recreation programme, etc. I did not offer any spirited challenges to her declaration that the Recreation Department will not change the schedule because I did not have a complete understanding of what is going on. This is due, only in part, because the schedule handed out at the rink differed from the information on the Skate Toronto website. (That a few folks have found the website not easy-to-navigate is not a subject for discussion in this letter.)

Whatever the valid Recreation Department reasons for the schedule changes are, we believe, none of the players in the above Saturday and Sunday morning sessions, anticipated significant changes. And, to be frank, no one from the City, certainly no one involved in the arbitrary changes to the scheduling consulted with those who have, for years, played during these time periods. And so, because we were not consulted, we have decided to put on the record what we believe may be the impact of the changes on our participation.

Background

Looking back on old schedules, the 10:00 am to noon adult shinny on Saturday and Sundays have been a fixture at Ramsden for at least 30 years. Many of the current players have played in these time slots for more than a decade. The principal writer behind this letter, for more than 30 years .

The significant schedule change has now been made in the wake of a full year’s shutdown of Ramsden for reasons that have yet to be adequately explained. The feared loss (to be explained below) of, arguably, half of the time enjoyed in the past adds insult to the shutdown injury.

The real or potential impact

The Saturday and Sunday morning adult hockey sessions, 10:00 – 12:00 pm have been extremely popular, sometimes with 10 or 12 players waiting on each bench. The scheduled cut-back in the Sunday session will cause the usual Sunday players who enjoy adults only hockey to migrate to the Saturday time slot aggravating the overcrowding problem;

Many players who have frequented the Sunday time period will, when confronted with (a) a session that starts at 9:00 am as opposed to 10:00 am and (b) a play period of only 45 minutes, will decide the travel and other effort for 45 minutes is not worth it and will stay away;

In the past, at least once or twice, even three times a season, there has been a snow fall or the Zamboni has broken down. Players who were the first to arrive that day have been confronted with snow on the ice that has not been cleared. Because your staff has been instructed not to release shovels and because the large scrapers that served so well for many years have been spirited away (an issue I discussed with Peter White), shovels have been brought from the homes of skaters and the ice has been cleared by our group. Unfortunately, there is no incentive to pitch in and do this work when most of a 45 minute session would be consumed by the shovelling. Of course, no following group would benefit from the voluntary ice cleaning either.

Players believe that “Shinny (All Ages)” will bring children onto the ice that will change the pace of the game experienced in the earlier 45 minute adult session. Hence the loss to us of the 10:00 am to Noon adult hockey will not be offset by the “All Ages” category. While bringing children onto the ice is a good thing, understand that the net result of doing so in this time period may destroy the Sunday adult shinny. (We hasten to add that in the past when youngsters, younger than 19, have shown up, more often than not, they have been allowed to play.)

In any event, even if Shinny (All Ages) offered a partial offset to the lost Sunday morning adult hockey, the All Ages category will disappear in January and February due to the activities that have been scheduled.

Anna, Ramsden is a community centre and our Sunday morning adult players constitute a small community within a larger whole. The bottom line is that your scheduled changes may damage or even terminate our Sunday morning hockey group. Last year, we lost the entire season. This year, because many of us only play on weekends, as one 20 year regular weekend player noted, when this “All ages” experiment unfolds, weekend only players will end up losing the equivalent of half their season this year via lost Sunday playing time.

Perhaps you will be kind enough to provide us with a written rationale for these changes including numbers of and details about the complaints you say you have received. We will distribute your answers. You may address some of the complaints the skate programme has received via the changes on Sunday morning but any such remedies will be accompanied by a serious negative impact on our longstanding Sunday morning group.

Reducing the adverse impact of your schedule changes

The Rosedale rink schedules adult hockey to start at 8:00 am on Saturdays. Dedicated adult players show up at 7:30 am for their two hour session beginning at 8:00 am. There are no insurmountable reasons why Sunday mornings at Ramsden could not be scheduled for adult hockey at 8:00 am starting on Sunday, January 5, 2020. We suspect that the majority of the regular turn-out on Sunday mornings, once informed of the change, would utilize the 8:00 – 9:45 time period.

Would budgetary issues arise? We suspect not. Your department has budgeted for rinks being opened until March 22, 2020. Yet, as Parks staff knows, there is not a snowballs chance in you-know-where that the weather will allow ice to be maintained to anywhere near March 20th. Parks has difficulty maintaining ice until the end of February. So money saved at the end of the schedule can easily be applied to paying staff for a one hour earlier start on Sundays in 2020.

We have a number of questions about the holiday schedule, a schedule that appears to reduce adult shinny times from what we enjoyed in earlier years. We will raise these issues in a separate communication. Meanwhile, we will look forward to your response.

Dear Mayor Tory:

RE: Closure of the Ramsden Park skating pads for the season

I am writing on behalf of hockey players and pleasure skaters who are among Friends of Ramsden to express our disappointment about the closure of the Ramsden Park skating pads for the 2018-2019 skating season. Moreover, we are deeply dismayed by the lack of transparency related to the reasons for the closure.

Many Torontonians, including skaters who come from a considerable distance from Ramsden, looked forward to the opening of this recreation centre at the end of November. To our considerable disappointment, we discovered that it was closed for the season. This is not a closure for a little over three months for many of us. This amounts to a closure for an entire season or year.

Mayor Tory, Ramsden is not just an opportunity to play a little hockey or to take our kids for a skate. We have a community here. The social engagement, the physical exercise, the opportunity to be out-of-doors in the middle of often grey winter days, all combine to make Ramsden special.

Skaters having to move to other rinks, often distant from public transit, is seldom an acceptable response to closed skating pads. With hockey for example, players travelling to other already overcrowded rinks where 20 players are shoehorned into players’ benches often leave extremely disappointed with the lack of playing time. Others look at the numbers already present and walk or drive away.

For these reasons and more, this loss raises a number of questions about the equipment malfunction, not all of which may be answered by the freedom of information inquiry that we have just filed. Perhaps your staff can do some research and provide some answers.

Critical mechanical issues with the refrigeration system have resulted in the unexpected closure of the rink for this year