The social ice-dance sessions at the rink in the Lloyd Center Mall (http://www.lloydcenterice.com/) are a welcome respite from the cold rinks. The ice is smaller than the normal NHL size rinks in the area - it is quite a bit narrower and I believe a little shorter than the normal rink. It is also quite warm.
The ice is generally well-maintained - especially since they also have curling at this rink - the curlers are notoriously picky about having the ice surface being slick and flat and fast. This pickiness spills over to the figure-skaters and usually they can count on having pretty good ice and this weekend was no exception.
The guy who made the ice this weekend drives the zamboni very slowly - some may complain about how long it takes to make the ice, but it is good ice. I have also heard people say that this ice is kind of slow because it is softer than the ice at the other rinks, but I don't really experience it that way. Sometimes the ice seems kind of "crunchy" but this weekend I thought it was pretty good.
We had some new people at the dance session today - the man was an experienced free-style skater and his wife a beginning skater. The wife was told that she couldn't skate on this session because she was a beginner. I really don't like this kind of thing - we need to find a way to get the beginning skaters interested in ice-dance... maybe they could have a class or something. Eventually we worked it out that if she stayed out of everyone's way and mostly skated around the perimeter she would be okay. I think she and her husband were grateful that we made it possible for them to skate. I know several beginning-level ice-dancers that feel intimidated by the dance sesions (and believe me, I TOTALLY understand, feeling intimidated myself at times, although I'm pretty experienced). I don't know what the answer is exactly, except that everyone must watch out for themselves and try to be aware of where everyone else is. Knowing the dance patterns helps.
I'm hoping that someone will come forward to help me co-author this blog - apparently we can have up to 100 authors - not sure yet how that works, but if someone is interested please contact me - maybe if you make a comment I can contact you. Somehow we should get together in any case!
The ice is generally well-maintained - especially since they also have curling at this rink - the curlers are notoriously picky about having the ice surface being slick and flat and fast. This pickiness spills over to the figure-skaters and usually they can count on having pretty good ice and this weekend was no exception.
The guy who made the ice this weekend drives the zamboni very slowly - some may complain about how long it takes to make the ice, but it is good ice. I have also heard people say that this ice is kind of slow because it is softer than the ice at the other rinks, but I don't really experience it that way. Sometimes the ice seems kind of "crunchy" but this weekend I thought it was pretty good.
We had some new people at the dance session today - the man was an experienced free-style skater and his wife a beginning skater. The wife was told that she couldn't skate on this session because she was a beginner. I really don't like this kind of thing - we need to find a way to get the beginning skaters interested in ice-dance... maybe they could have a class or something. Eventually we worked it out that if she stayed out of everyone's way and mostly skated around the perimeter she would be okay. I think she and her husband were grateful that we made it possible for them to skate. I know several beginning-level ice-dancers that feel intimidated by the dance sesions (and believe me, I TOTALLY understand, feeling intimidated myself at times, although I'm pretty experienced). I don't know what the answer is exactly, except that everyone must watch out for themselves and try to be aware of where everyone else is. Knowing the dance patterns helps.
I'm hoping that someone will come forward to help me co-author this blog - apparently we can have up to 100 authors - not sure yet how that works, but if someone is interested please contact me - maybe if you make a comment I can contact you. Somehow we should get together in any case!
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