The Great Skate Project

Good grief, this is the 9th year of my Great Skate Project. And for my Great Skate #48, I returned to the site of Great Skate #1 : the Barbara Ann Scott rink at College Park in downtown Toronto. In 2012, I skated at the previous incarnation of this rink on a damp New Year's Day with my friend Cathy and her son H. The rink closed the following year due to a condo build. The renovated rink opened to the public in November 2019. On January 7, 2020, I headed to the rink after work to check it out. Like many new rinks in Toronto, the Barbara Ann Scott rink is now an " ice trail " that loops through a park. There are benches and landscaping that will be attractive and useful in the warmer months as well as in winter. And there are giant frogs, which is not a phrase I ever thought I'd be typing on this blog. Statues of frogs at the Barbara Ann Scott Ice Trail. The rink building is architecturally impressive; you would never mistake it for a maintenance shed.