Rink Diary 2005 - 2006

Here's a look at the running of Rennie Rink during the rink season of 2005/2006. Toronto has 47 neighborhood compressor-powered outdoor rinks (that's not counting the big outdoor rinks in central squares). The rinks range from lively meeting places for their neighborhoods to squalid hangouts for very troubled people. The rinks are also demonstration sites of the joys and troubles that beset city staff. Jutta Mason visited some rinks every day, some just occasionally.

March 8 2006

Rennie Rink: 4:00 p.m. pleasure pad poor ice quality but hockey pad great ice quality. However, hockey pad locked "to set for girls hockey later on". Ice thickness about 2 inches on hockey pad and roughly 4 - 6 inches on pleasure pad. No Skaters. Staff person kicking soccer ball against rink building wall. Rennie Rink was the only one where the observer saw a staff person outside, at all the rinks visited March 7 and 8.

March 12 2006

Rennie Rink, 12 noon, cloudy: Ice hard on both sides. Looks 2 to 3 inches on most of the hockey side, much thicker on the pleasure-skating side. About 25 kids on both sides for figure-skating lessons. One of the parents told me about the day the Toronto Maple Leafs came to play for the media. Apparently some school classes were brought over, but the kids were told that they couldn’t speak to the Maple Leafs, nor get their autographs, nor go on the ice with them. It was a very cold day and the kids shivered in the bleachers until it was over – just a backdrop for the photos.

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Content last modified on November 21, 2007, at 04:38 PM EST