For better use and better management. The UNOFFICIAL Website of Toronto's Outdoor Skating Rinks
Weather: high minus 1, low minus 6 , cloudy
At 2 p, there are quite a few shinny players, and the change room is open. The rink guard warns skaters that they'll have to get off the ice in a few minutes.
From a rink user:
I tried Withrow Rink Monday and Tuesday of this week. Beautiful! However when the very competent daytime attendant left, a great pleasure skating opportunity dwindled. One "kid" was allowed on the ice with just a stick. No problem. Then a puck was introduced. Then 3 teenagers in street clothes and shoes got on the ice for a round of passing practice. I stayed out of it as I am no longer willing to be the "no fun older guy". Another man kind of wigged out and actually got physical with the youngest guy, grabbing his helmet and stick, throwing them over the boards. Meanwhile the attendant was just sitting in the office listening to music. It could have become ugly, but a passerby intervened.
3.45pm Rink closed, no staff. There was a sign on the change room door that said the rink would be open again on Saturday at 9am. (There are a few kids on the ice that had sneaked in through the back Zamboni gate.) There were machine noises coming from the buildings that seemed to suggest the compressor was still running and the compressor room had not been flooded. There was a lot of fast running water coming down the slopes around the rink. The ice was wet and this covered almost the entire surface of the ice, all the way to the edges, except for one corner. More of the ice was under water than at Dufferin and the other rinks I visited. It didn't look rough.