For better use and better management. The UNOFFICIAL Website of Toronto's Outdoor Skating Rinks
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You are in the Sorauren Park folder
There's nothing like outdoor skating
A project of CELOS
Comments about this rink: e-mail us at [email protected].
Sorauren Rink Wordpress post:'
The City of Toronto has passed the responsibility of monitoring compliance of the safe use rules onto the Hoser Crew. .....The one rule we all struggle with the most is “No Shinny”. There is nothing more enjoyable than an afternoon of Shinny with your friends and family. The Hoser Crew loves a good game too. Remember the 2019 Hoser Celebrity Shinny game? That was the most fun that we, as a collective team, have had together in the many years that we have been building this rink.
Over the last couple of days the Hoser Crew has been conversing on how to encourage the community to respect safe use of our hard work. Many of us have had to remind shinny players of the rules and have pointed to the signs outlining the City’s guidelines. Unfortunately, the shinny games continue and we now have to take some additional steps to prevent the potential for fines, rink shutdown or both.
This weekend the Hoser Crew will be redesigning the rink experience by creating snow islands in the middle of each of the two pads. These islands will create more of a skating trail to encourage physically distanced skating and discourage shinny. With the warmer weather Thursday and Friday this seems like the right time to rethink our COVID-era rink. The surface is in pretty bad shape and it will take at least 40 to 50 hrs. of labour Friday, Saturday and Sunday to get it back to where it was last weekend.
Rink update February 8: the west - side pad is OPEN for leisure skating. Some bumps make shinny tough, but otherwise skate-able. East-side pad closed for remediation. Sorauren Hosers working hard to lay in the ice. Watch this space for updates.
The temperature is going down to -9C tonight, and it will be cold again tomorrow night, but that's not long enough to make a rink on top of dirt. And then back up to over 0 again. So no rink this January!
From their Facebook page: "The Sorauren Rink is, alas, closed. After a good start we have been hit by warm weather that makes it impossible to flood and maintain ice. Please stay off the rink to protect what we have. And let's hope for below zero temperatures!"
Sorauren Rink status Tuesday Jan 21: skateable in parts, appropriate for small kids. Not quite ready for full-ice shinny due to protruding bare patches. #SoraurenHoser rink crew flooding daily at 9pm to build up surface.
After a day of digging out the snow and an afternoon flood, managed to get good night time flood with #Jarek. It’s starting to look like an ice rink!
Brilliant turn-out by Sorauren Park volunteers! Storm-hit rink cleared in 1.5 hours, then a flood by the Sorauren Hosers....Still some rough patches. Thanks all!
From the Facebook page: All we need now is consistent below zero temperatures.
The Sorauren natural ice rink is ready for flooding now that members of the all-volunteer Sorauren Hosers Rink Crew have erected the boards.
Build day was near flawless thanks to veterans and newcomers alike, of all ages. The rink is on the baseball diamond and once flooded and frozen will feature two interconnected ice pads.
Thanks to the volunteers including photographer Susan, Sunny Joe’s Coffee for warm drinks, and our returning Rink Sponsors Scooter Girl Toys, Snap Fitness High Park, and Chander Chaddah, Sutton Real Estate.
Rink diaries from earlier years:
Come to Sorauren Park on Family Day, Monday February 19, for a special Farmers Market, 3 – 7 p.m. The pizza oven will be fired up, there will be free hot cider, and delicious hot chocolate will be sold from an outdoor booth.
If the weather cooperates, the natural ice rink will be open for pleasure skating and shinny. Plus, all the winter Market vendors will be open in the Fieldhouse.
The Market will also be offering a family portrait service and board games. See you at the park!
On a school day at noon, the rink is empty but there are skate marks and the big rinks look firm and smooth.
This year there is no shortage of snow -- and as the rink makes obvious, who needs hockey boards when you have the snow piled this high?
Three people were hosing the ice at 9.30 p.m. They said they're determined to have a rink for Family Day, plan to have a campfire too.
This has not been a good year for natural ice rinks so far -- no ice over the holidays and very little after.
Despite yesterday's warm weather (up to 5 celsius), this rink is smooth and hard this morning. However, it's still cloudy -- when the sun comes out later, there may be a different story.
At 2 pm, the rink looked great and there were schoolkids on it, skating around while their teacher watched. She said she knew it was open because her husband and son are both on the flooding-volunteers list.
This double rink has short boards and a liner, since there's no natural dip in the ground.
At 4 pm, the two rinks had lots of people and the ice looked great.
Join the Sorauren Rink community build this Saturday Now that we finally have some decent weather, preparations are being made for the volunteer-powered Sorauren Park natural ice rink.
You can help this Saturday morning, Jan. 10, starting at 9 a.m. on the baseball diamond. The Sorauren Hosers are looking for volunteers to help install the boards (last year’s innovation) and start flooding. The Hosers make two interconnected pads, one for shinny and one for pleasure skating.
All hands are helpful, and all ages, but especially needed are folks handy with cordless drill-drivers (please bring your charged-up tools) and hammers. We install 8”-high boards to keep in the water (see photo above).
The Hosers also need volunteers to help flood. A two- or three-person crew floods every night at 9 p.m., weather permitting. Volunteers typically pick one night per week to join that evening’s crew. We match up experienced Hosers with newcomers.
From CELOS rink visitors: At 4:50pm there were still about 40 skaters at the rink, 8 playing shinny, 12 pleasure skaters, the rest around the rink and the campfire. The campfire was cozy, in a shallow metal dish raised off the ground. The market was extended today to run 2-7pm. The ice looked great, people said that it was a puddle after the warm weather, but it re-froze and they did a lot of repair on it, and now it's in good shape again.
Link to descriptions and "home movies" from other years: http://www.soraurenpark.com/rink.html
From CELOS rink visitors: At 4:50pm there were still about 40 skaters at the rink, 8 playing shinny, 12 pleasure skaters, the rest around the rink and the campfire. The campfire was cozy, in a shallow metal dish raised off the ground. The market was extended today to run 2-7pm. The ice looked great, people said that it was a puddle after the warm weather, but it re-froze and they did a lot of repair on it, and now it's in good shape again.
Link to descriptions and "home movies" from other years: http://www.soraurenpark.com/rink.html