Great Skates So Far


An alphabetical list of the outdoor rinks I've visited so far in my Great Skate Project:

Alexandra Park, Toronto (Great Skate #19)

Arrowhead Provincial Park, Huntsville (Great Skate #30)

Barbara Ann Scott Rink, Toronto (Great Skate #1 and Great Skate #48)

The Bentway Skate Trail, Toronto (Great Skate #47)

Brickworks Skating Trail, Toronto (Great Skate #3)

Bryant Park, New York City (Great Skate #40)

Canada150 Rink, Parliament Hill, Ottawa (Great Skate #44)

Cedarvale Park Rink, Toronto (Great Skate #37)

Christie Pits Park, Toronto (Great Skate #27)

Colonel Sam Smith Skating Trail, Toronto (Great Skate #17)

Couchiching Beach Park, Orillia (Great Skate #24)

Dieppe Park, Toronto (Great Skate #5)

Dufferin Grove Park, Toronto (Great Skate #29)

Fairmount Park, Toronto (Great Skate #14)

First Baptist Church, Orillia (Great Skate #10)

Gage Park, Brampton (Great Skate #33)

Giovanni Coboto Rink (Great Skate #36)

Glen Stewart Park, Toronto (Great Skate #31)

Greenwood Park, Toronto (Great Skate #8 and Great Skate #21)

Harbourfront Centre, Toronto (Great Skate #13)

High Park, Toronto (Great Skate #12)

Hodgson Public School, Toronto (Great Skate #20)

Kew Gardens Park, Toronto (Great Skate #6)

Lansdowne Skating Court, Ottawa (Great Skate #43)

Love Street Parkette Rink, Toronto (Great Skate #34)

Mel Lastman Square, Toronto (Great Skate #4)

Monarch Park, Toronto (Great Skate #15)

Murray Street Park, Orillia (Great Skate #9)

Nathan Phillips Square, Toronto (Great Skate #16)

Newmarket Riverwalk Commons (Great Skate #26)

North Toronto Memorial Community Centre (Great Skate #28)

Orchard Park, Toronto (Great Skate #17)

Otter Creek Centre, Toronto (Great Skate #35)

Ramsden Park, Toronto (Great Skate #11)

Regent Park, Toronto (Great Skate #42)

Rideau Canal Skateway, Ottawa (Great Skate #45)

Riverdale Park East, Toronto (Great Skate #2 and Great Skate #46)

Ryerson Community Park, Toronto (Great Skate #7)

Sherbourne Commons, Toronto (Great Skate #22)

Shops at Don Mills, Toronto (Great Skate #32)

Trinity-Bellwoods Park, Toronto (Great Skate #41)

Wallace Emerson Park, Toronto (Great Skate #38)

Washago Rink, Simcoe County (Great Skate #25)

Withrow Park, Toronto (Great Skate #18)

Wollman Rink, Central Park, New York City (Great Skate #39)

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Popular Great Skates

Great Skate #21 - Greenwood Park (renovated)

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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 ...
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Great Skate #7 - Ryerson Community Park

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Great Skate #34: Love Crescent Parkette

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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 ...
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Great Skate #33: Gage Park, Brampton

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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...
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Great Skate #40: Bryant Park, New York City

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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...
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