Great Skate #35: Otter Creek Centre

My Great Skate Project is simple: Try to skate on a different outdoor rink each week, and encourage as many friends and family members to join me as possible. 

 I began this project in January 2012 as a way to make the cold months pass more enjoyably. Now, five years later (!), I'm still at it. It has been a fun way to get fresh air and exercise, and to explore different parks and neighbourhoods.

 On January 1, 2016 my friend Cathy joined me for Great Skate #35 at the Otter Creek Centre rink. It's a very typical Toronto rink with heated change rooms (with washrooms) and two ice surfaces (for pleasure skating and shinny). It's not pretty, but it gets the job done. There were lots of people skating. I didn't see any otters. 

 Cathy and I spent a pleasant hour of going around in circles in the cold, and catching up on our lives. She has been a enthusiastic participant in many Great Skates (including Great Skate #1). Thanks for being such a fan of my goofy project, Cathy!
Skaters in the snow at the Otter Creek Centre rink on Cheritan Avenue.

Where will the Great Skate Project go next?

There are a lot of rinks to choose from, even just within city limits. The City of Toronto maintains 53 outdoor rinks. That doesn't include the more than 30 natural-ice rinks created by neighbourhood groups in Toronto, or rinks run by other organizations like Harbourfront or the Evergreen Brickworks.

 I have skated on 35 different rinks so far. Skating each week from January to mid-March means this year there are about 12 opportunities to add more Great Skates to my list. Priority goes to the rinks that are easy to reach by transit, or that friend and family with cars are willing to drive to.

New Rink Links

Old Toronto Skating Photographs - This recent article by Joel Levy in the Toronto Guardian shows dozens of archival photos from the early 20th century.  (Thanks to my sister for sending me the link.)

 Carousel on Ice - Watch this fun video to see what happens when you put Latvians on a frozen lake with a chainsaw and an outboard motor.


Location: Cheritan Ave, Toronto, ON, Canada

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Great Skates

Great Skate #21 - Greenwood Park (renovated)

Image
The weather on Sunday, January 5 was mild and snowy - a perfect day for skating. My friends and nieces joined me at the Greenwood Park rink. Those of you keeping track might notice that Greenwood has already had its Great Skate, but it's had such a dramatic makeover since then that I'm counting it as a new rink. Two years ago, at Great Skate #8 , the Greenwood Park rink looked like this: Greenwood Park rink on February 11, 2012 It was a typical Toronto rink. Not beautiful, but it did the job. Last winter, the rink was closed for renovations. It reopened in November , looking like the winner of a skating rink beauty contest: Greenwood Park rink in November 2013 It used to be a single ice rink surrounded by a chain link fence, where you might feel a bit like a gerbil in a cage (if gerbils could skate). Now Greenwood Park has two rinks. One, used for shinny and skating lessons, is covered by a snazzy roof (which probably has some practical, keep-the-ice-icy ...
Read more

Great Skate #7 - Ryerson Community Park

Image
Cathy joined me for a peaceful afternoon skate at Ryerson Community Park on February 4th. This is the little rink tucked into the Ryerson University campus. There weren't many skaters out and everyone else was a university student. Two guys were practising their hockey skills, using turned-over benches as goals. A girl practised her figure skating spins while flirting with a guy who looked like he was torn between flirting back and joining the hockey players. The Ryerson rink is round, and because there were so few skaters on the ice, it was a good opportunity to explore something I've noticed during Great Skate 2012:  people always skate in a counterclockwise direction . I tested this, deliberately skating clockwise. With just Cathy and I doing laps, we weren't getting in anyone's way, and there wasn't any peer pressure to overcome. At first, no problems, although it felt a bit odd. Then after a few minutes I realized that we had somehow turned ourselves a...
Read more

Great Skate #34: Love Crescent Parkette

Image
On Saturday, March 7, I enjoyed a solitary skate at a natural ice rink in Love Crescent parkette .* That was probably my last Great Skate of the season. Since then, the weather has shifted from wintery to spring-like. The sun is warm, the air is soft and you can hear water dripping everywhere. There may be a few die-hard skaters and shinny players out there, but I think most of us are ready to switch to cycling, ball hockey and other warm-weather activities. The Love Crescent rink was first built in 2013 by a group of community-minded skating enthusiasts. The street is tucked away in a neighbourhood just north of Kingston Road in east Toronto. It's not a place you pass through on your way somewhere else; you have to know where you're going to find it. The rink builders were clever. They designed the rink in the shape of an oblong donut. In the centre is a space for shinny players. Around the centre, separated by a wide snowbank, is a track for pleasure skating. There are ...
Read more

Great Skate #33: Gage Park, Brampton

Image
On Sunday, March 1, the Great Skate Project revisited one of the rinks of my youth: the skating trail in Brampton's Gage Park . My friends Jennifer and Riubert joined me, with their two small boys. Gage Park is located in downtown Brampton - the quaint, slightly shabby part of Brampton that has been eclipsed by the mushrooming housing developments all around it. In the late 1980s, Brampton rebuilt its City Hall, and that project included the installation of a skating trail in the neighbouring Gage Park. I think it was the smartest thing that Brampton councillors have ever done. It's been years since the last time I skated at Gage Park. This was the first time my friends had been there, so I was glad my memory of it lived up to reality. I don't know how long the skating trail is, but it does a big loop around the perimeter of the park. There is a skate sharpening booth ($5 per pair), a snack truck and public washrooms. Parking (free on Sundays) is across the s...
Read more

Great Skate #40: Bryant Park, New York City

Image
The rink at Bryant Park doesn't have the same "I saw it in the movies" cachet as the rinks at Central Park and Rockefeller Center , but it is pretty spectacular. The rink is the centrepiece of Bryant Park's Bank of America Winter Village . Chalk up a point in favour of corporate sponsorships: admission to this rink is free. (I did pay for a lock to secure my locker though.) The amenities include a spacious changeroom, a snack bar and skate rentals. Also, a platoon of penguins and snowmen that unsteady skaters can use to keep their balance. There were lots of good things about this Great Skate, but here's what I got excited about: the skating direction was clockwise. Skating clockwise is a very rare thing on public ice rinks. I asked one of the staff members if they always skated clockwise. He said that the skating direction was counter-clockwise in the mornings, and clockwise in the afternoons. So sensible. On a Friday afternoon, the rink was busy but...
Read more