Where Have All the Dancers Gone??

It's a beautiful sunny Sunday in Portland. I decide to head out to the Lloyd Center to go to the social dance session. I'm thinking, "What a great day for ice dance - I'm all relaxed, the sky is blue and I want to dance!"

I guess very few other people felt that way.

It was a nice session - don't get me wrong. It's nice to take a lesson and not have to worry too much about getting in everyone's way, or feeling uncomfortable with other dancers buzzing around me... but c'mon people - where were you?

There were about 10 of us on the ice today. Maybe. 2 men, the rest women (makes for a lopsided social session, that's for sure!). The ice was beautiful. The company, fantastic.

We were able to do figures and work on parts of patterns. That is nice.

Oh yeah, and there was the "runner" on the ice. This kid jumped over the barrier and started running and sliding on the ice. I took it upon myself to tell him to "Get OFF right now!!". I didn't know I had it in me - he looked kind of startled. Oh well, it kind of made my morning.

One of the skaters took a lot of photographs at the sesion so I am happy to post a couple of them to show everyone just how empty it was! You are missed, fellow dancers!!!

When It's Good - It's REALLY Good!!

No - Not my skating!!!

The Ice At Valley!!!

I got there today at 9:10 and the ice was being cut for the 9:30 public. Thursday is the only day of the week that there is an ice-cut for the 9:30 public and so this week I decided to take advantage of this fact. Not only were they doing an ice-cut, they were putting hot water on the ice.

This is something they should do all of the time, but apparently they don't. I still don't know that much about zambonis and how ice is made (although I do have a video about it that I have never watched...) but if you put hot-water on the ice while you are making it, it makes for a very smooth sheet of ice.

And smooth it was. I could tell from the instant I touched my blade to the ice that I would have a good skate. Fast, smooth ice. A smoother feel than Lloyd Center ice, which has been more "crunchy" of late. I can't describe it exactly, but it feels like butter. Very nice and very smooth.

It is still somewhat sloped, but I think that if I were to choose between having a totally flat rink or a smooth, buttery surface, I would choose the smooth surface. For figures it's nice to have flat ice because you don't feel like you are going to lose your momentum when you go up the hill, or lose control when you go down. For the most part, if you do your figures between the two blue lines (if you can see them) you will not have to deal with the slopes of the ice.

So yes, it is better. It still is a 20-mile round trip for me to go there in the morning. I may make this a "once-a-week" special trip rather than taking the time to go there more often.

But when it's good, it's very very good.

[And when it's bad - it's horrid].

Rink Judging System

I was thinking today as I skated again on "Little Shiny" (LC Ice) that I could take the new judging system created for judging figure skating (called IJS or International Judging System) and apply it to my judgement of the rinks I skate at in the Portland area. Since I am a judge of figure skating (albeit I don't use this new system very much as a test judge, but I do have some exposure to this system) I figured I am somewhat qualified to use this system in any way I want, so here goes:

So in this judging system the skaters are given two sets of marks by the judges - the "Grade of Execution" for each element in the program - these grades range from -3 to +3, with 0 being "just okay" or "Just right" - nothing special but the element has been performed. -3 is usually given for a fall or a major error on the element. Positive grades of execution (or GOE) are given if the element is really good or even great.

The 2nd set of marks is more subjective (as if those first Grades or Execution or GOE are totally objective, but I digress) - these are the Program Components. These are what used to comprise the old "Presentation" or Artistry" mark in the 6.0 system and include categories like "Skating Skills" "Performance and Execution", "Choreography", etc. These categories are given a score from 1-10 with 10 being the best there ever was or could be (think: John Curry) and 1 being - well, pretty mediocre (think: me or any recreational or beginning skater).

So how does this apply to judging the rinks, you may ask?

For the GOE, we could look at the different elements of what makes a good rink: The quality of the ice could have a certain set value and then we could add or subtract from that value on any given day. We could look at Customer Service, cleanliness, etc. in the same way.

For the Program Components we could set up another set of criteria (although these criteria might be the same, actually, as I haven't defined that many levels of satisfaction yet...) and then could be judged on a scale of 1-10. In the end we could see who "wins" given these criteria that I have arbitarily set up.

I will work on this more in the coming days.

Tomorrow - a lesson at Valley (I hope) to do figures (I hope) and to figure out the categories, etc. - maybe I will even do a [mock] judging!!
Happy skating everyone!

Another Beautiful Day at Little Shiny

Such beautiful ice! Such beautiful service! 1.5 miles from my house! Warm!

Okay, so the music situation leaves a little to be desired. I think I can play my own CDs on the public, but I'm not sure. It seems like one of the skaters does this, but I can't tell if it is allowed or whether the staff is just placating a certain individual... so today I put on my iPod, which was good, UNTIL they turned the volume up on the speakers so loud that I couldn't hear the iPod!!

Today the ice was so beautiful it looked like glass - literally - or maybe a mirror - just beautiful - maybe just a little crunchy, but who cares?

And it is generally flat, although not completely, which I find amusing... You can't feel it unless you are trying to do figures, which of course, I like to do.

This is my last week of the "free" public sessions (since I am taking a class) and I've decided not to do it for the next 8-week class period since the summer vacation will start at about week 6 of the class and I know that I won't want to go to the publics during the summer. I think.

I will have to think about it.

Maybe I will do some calculations and see if will still make sense to take the class. It will probably turn out cheaper in the long run... even with those weeks of missed public sessions due to "Kool Kamp" (which is a great thing for the kid-set - camp at the ice rink? What a concept!!)

These morning public sessions also seem to be very popular among the "mom and me" crowd (parent and me?) - 3 and 4 year olds coming to skate with their moms. Luckily they are pretty predictable and generally stay around the edges - which is great, unless I am doing some killer dance-patterns...

Well, enough rambling for today. no photographs/graphics as blogger seems to be having some type of problem with that...

Just in from "Skatecam"

"The ice was really good today!!!"

"And there was no one there." - Skatecam

I do declare!! Good ice at Valley!!

What possessed me to go to Valley this morning?

Did I know somehow that the ice would be good?

How would I have known that?

It's not like I have the past to go on - sure it's been getting better but it's still so touch-and go...

But today, it was quite beautiful.

The hills are mere rises and the valleys just the gentlest of slopes.

The ice was made this morning at 6am. There were several skaters taking lessons in the time period from 6:15-9:15. There were no further ice-cuts for the supposed 9:30 "public". Since the morning ice has returned there is no semblance of a schedule.

Someone said that they were thinking of asking for an ice-cut around 8:15 but decided against it because they might screw it up - interesting to have to think of it this way...

Apparently they were talking about me at 6am - this would have been good ice for figures. For Lisa. Nice of them to think of me when I was still snoozing away in my little bed. Early morning ice and I have not been friends for quite some time... that's why I work part-time!!

I digress. I got on the ice at 9:15 and although the I couldn't quite see my figures, I did some anyway and the ice was nice. Softer than it has been and no hockey or Zamboni ruts. the usual crowd of skaters came in and we played great music.

I can skate again - just stroking is a complete pleasure! And I'm getting bolder doing turns, etc., although I'm still wary of the slopes and rises which tend to be in the areas where many of the turns are done in dance. But oh well. It was a good practice. On good ice.

So where do we go next time? Is there any way of knowing whether it could possibly be this good again? Like on Friday morning?

With gas at over $3.50 a gallon I still have to think carefully about making the 20-mile round trip there in the morning. and of course the $8 versus the free public at LC - which is a 3-mile round trip from my house...

Dilemmas, Dilemmas. Such is the skating world in PDX...

Quiet Session at "Little Shiny" Rink (LC)

Oh, it's getting really redundant - skating at the Lloyd Center rink at the 10 am public - very nice... ice is flat... good... very few people on the ice... an opportunity to practice figures for a half-hour and then just having a nice, nice skate... pleasant people who work there...

Is it all just a little bland? The sameness... the niceness... the food court smells...

I could get used to this, but probably won't - most likely heading off to Valley at least one day this week because I got this photograph from the enigmatic "skatecam" this morning of the ice at Valley today.

It looks beautiful - so pristine and white... in reality I heard (again, from the enigmatic "skatecam") that it was still full of hockey ruts (what do you expect for a Tuesday after "old man hockey") had some hills and valleys in the hockey boxes, but was "skateable".

Sigh... What more can you expect?

My loyalties have been split...

I think a Mt. View session is in my future - there is a coffee club there on M and W around noon. will have to try it. Maybe next week...

Smooth as Silk: LC ("Little Shiny Rink")

Saturday evening dance session at Lloyd Center is usually not so well attended. This can be good or bad depending on how you look at it. It's good because the ice is BEAUTIFUL and well-manicured following the public session that preceeds it (which is no small task I am thinking) which is delightful for any ice-dancer.

It's BAD because there are very few people (men) to skate with!

I made the most of the (bad) situation by just enjoying the ice and working on basics and parts of dances, which is about what I am capable of these days - with anything that requires quick turns and changes on the upper-level dances. I am okay with the lower-level and (mostly) forward dances - these are easy (relatively) and I enjoy skating them with about as much flow as I can muster by myself.

The atmosphere in the mall is a little wild in this early Saturday evening time slot - more people hanging out, more people in the food court (watch out for flying french fries!) and just more onlookers than most of us are used to - but as I've mentioned, you learn to ignore it for the most part (although one is ever-wary of things that might get dropped onto the ice, including, it seems, parents who decide to dangle their child over the edge of the barrier - not too smart considering that in this small rink the ice-dancers sometimes need to get very close to the barrier in order to get the patterns into this small rink. I have not seen it happen, but I would hate for some child to get slammed by oncoming ice-dancers!!!

I had to admit I was a little intimidated that I would get smacked myself last night - there was a team of "elite" ice-dancers on the ice last night doing the dances (or the parts of the dances that they could fit into this rink) and I just couldn't help but feel that I was going to get mowed down (or get in their way) at some point. It never happened, but I did feel uncomfortable, I must admit. It's been a long time since I've skated on the same ice with skaters moving at that speed and with that power (oh how I miss skating in Boston...)...

Another good reason to have a partner, even a temporary one at a social dance session - two people dancing together are far more solid than just me skating solo.

Speaking of partners, I want to congratulate all of the hard-working ice-dance teams that just finished up competing at "Adult Nationals" this past weekend and especially to Laura Rose and Kiel Leighton who were 1st in the Original Dance portion of the Championship Dance competition!!! I must say I LOVED their dance at Pacific Coast Sectionals and can't wait to see it on icenetwork!

Also don't know what happened to Portland's other team of Julia and Jordan who apparently withdrew from both of their events and haven't been heard from since... Strange.

I know that I am not usually into "naming names" in this blog but I just wanted to put out a very big CONGRATULATIONS to all of the skaters from Portland who competed in Lake Placid this weekend. I know that every one of you worked very hard to be there!! Yea!

Let's Not Jump to Any Hasty Conclusions!!

Okay, so the ice was better than it has been in the past month or so, but it still wasn't flat. At Valley that is.

This is what one person said: "On Wednesday it was great, Thursday it was good, and today (Friday) it was okay". The public session is after morning hockey ("old-man hockey" - I wouldn't call it this, but that is an exact quote from one of the zamboni-guys who works there) and a once-over with the zamboni isn't really enough to get the hockey ruts out. So there were some ruts, not bad, but my blade happened to fall into them a few times, which makes a person more cautious.

And the hills and valleys? They are still there, but they are better than before the zamboni broke. You no longer feel like someone is pushing from behind or that you have to labor to get up the hills. But they are not gone.

Those hills are just waiting to come back, waiting to turn us all into cautious, scared skaters. Waiting. Lurking. It will be just a matter of time I think.

Lighting is also a problem as the "big lights" are largely burned out - so you will go from very bright to darker - sun, shade, sun, shade, sun, shade - kind of like our Portland weather lately... disconcerting.

Word must have gotten out, though, that the ice was better because there were quite a few of the regulars there, plus a few "freestyle kids" and ice-dancers. Hard to do any figures, but oh well, that is for another rink at another time.

Maybe.

Valley Ice

The Zamboni has been fixed and the ice has also been fixed (or at least significantly improved). There is still a small valley at the ends where the hockey nets sit, but otherwise the ice is flat, and in fairly good shape. I usually go there on Thursday for the early public session (1:30 or so) and have private ice - it would be nice to have some company, as it can seem a little lonely.

Keep on skating.
CHERYN

Zam Fixed??

Apparently the zamboni has been fixed (I heard it was a problem with the transmission - yikes!) AND reportedly the ice is now good. As of yesterday (Wednesday) afternoon.

AND for those of you wondering, apparently a LOT of the hills (and the valleys) are flattened. I'm not sure how that happened but I will be going out to test it myself tomorrow. I will be sure to use the very scientific method of feeling the ice underneath my blades and also standing still and seeing where my blades take me. (THINK: skiing on the bunny hill).

Maybe there is a god after all.

Who AM I?

And why I am keeping this blog?

People have been asking how I have so much time to skate AND to write this blog, so maybe I have a little explaining to do: I am a 53-year-old married small animal veterinarian. I do house-call practice and have been for ten years now. I started skating when I was 6 and skated "in a competitive atmosphere" until I was 14 and then quit for all of the usual reasons (teenage-ness for the most part - crappy skating for the other part...).

Fast-forward 16 years: Torville and Dean win the '84 Olympics. I get the skating bug again. I buy some used men's skates and start to skate at the Boston-area rinks. I have just graduated from vet school. I have no money for lessons or new skates and have tons of school loans. So I just skate from time-to-time from my memory. I used to like dance but can't remember the dances so I make them up. I do some lousy freestyle, but it's fun anyway.

Finally, in 1989, someone tells me about an ice-dance class at one of the local rinks. By this time I have my own white skates and decide to take the class. I enjoy re-learning all of the dances but am worried about not having a coach - wondering how that is all going to happen.

Then I took a job on the south shore of Boston. One day this guy comes into the vet practice with these two dogs - little poodles. My boss winked at me and said, "Come and see these dogs" so I went into the exam room with him. I could not understand why he wanted me to see these two dogs because it was an average visit - then the guy says, "Yup, the dogs are with me all day at the rink."

"Rink?" I say - looking at my boss who was grinning from ear to ear. My boss says, "Yeah, this guy is the owner of the rink a couple of blocks from here". so I ask the guy about dance and he said that yes, they had a dance session - at noon on Mondays and Wednesdays and that there were "some younger people there".

So I went and started ice-dancing with the group at that rink and met an ice-dance coach and started testing, etc. I got the bug bad.

So then in 1993 we decided to move to Portland. I wondered if they would have dance and yes, they do - which is great!! Anyway, I worked several types of jobs here in Portland (all vet jobs of course) but always had the intention of starting a house-call practice, partially so I could control my hours and have more time to skate and not have to depend on early-morning ice.

So why do I write this blog?

I like to write, so that is a start. I wanted to blog about SOMETHING and have a lot of opinions about animal care and veterinary medicine that are not particularly popular and I didn't want to get my clients involved. So I started this blog about the rinks in the area.

I do not have any particular training in ice-technology, only what I can feel with my feet through the skates. I realize that some of the problems with the ice (like say, at Valley) is not necessarily due to negligence but to certain engineering factors that I have no way of understanding. So I hope everyone can take my blog with a grain of salt and know that really, I love skating and I enjoy most aspects of skating in the Portland area, including any perceived problems with the ice and/or rinks etc.

So enough about me - I just wanted to get this off of my chest (so to speak).

I also want to send out a big "good-luck" to all of the Portland skaters who are in Lake Placid RIGHT NOW competing in the US Figure Skating Adult Championships. Go Portland skaters!!

Lisa

Zam Alert: Valley!!

Just got a call from my coach - no ice tuesday at Valley because the zamboni is "broken" - whatever.

I wasn't going to go anyway, but just wanted everyone to know.

Zam alert.

At Lloyd Center, You Never Know

Who or what is going to see you skate!!

So yeah, some people like the idea of skating in private seclusion at the other area rinks. At Lloyd Center you don't have that luxury - anyone can see you in all of your skating glory, which at times is not so pretty!!

So today I got there for the 10 am public. There were only a few people there and the ice was very nice. I went over to the end and set up some figures and was very happy to be doing so. I was doing a (for me) very nice back-outside eight and I saw these people standing near the corner of the ice looking at me. You learn to not look back and so I ignored them and just concentrated on my figure, the tracing, my position, feeling more CORE, etc. Then I could hear the one guy saying something like, "Hey lady -blah, blah, blah". Again I just ignored him - I figured if he wanted to say something he would say it again.

So as I came around the guy says, "Hey, you know they don't do figures anymore!" I just said, without looking, "Well, I still do!" and that was that. But that bugged me. I thought, "Who is this guy and what does he know about figures or whatever... -- What????"

It really bugged me. I wondered if it was someone I knew. This also really bugged me. Why didn't he just say, "Hi Lisa" or something.

Then I saw his wife and realized who it was - a friend who is quite a joker!!

But still you never know who might see you skating at the Lloyd Center Ice Rink.

And then there are the smells from the food court, wafting down at you...

Fewer valleys at Valley

Went to Valley this afternoon for the public session. Got there at 1:30 and left about 2:45 - private ice the entire time. Just wanted to report that there seemed to be fewer hills & valleys - just the bad spots at the ends where they put the hockey nets. They seem to be working on improving the ice conditions, at least as of this afternoon.
CHERYN

The Rumors are Flying at Valley!!

Ha! I knew this would get your attention!! (Really, I had been asked by one reader to include more confirmable gossip - and then that made me wonder - if it is confirmable, is it really gossip?).

I went there today not expecting much. BUT they apparently got a new blade for the zam (aren't they always buying new blades? How long do those things last anyway? Doesn't seem like very long between them having to get a new blade) and the surface of the ice was markedly better with fewer ruts and ridges and zamboni-water lines, etc. (although there was still that one big long line down the left-hand side of the rink - but still).

So at first it seemed okay - but THEN I really really noticed the hills - they are everywhere! If you start standing still between the middle red line and the far blue line and point towards the zamboni-room door, you don't have to push AT ALL and you will go downhill into the zamboni door. It is hilarious. Then when you get to the zamboni door you can make a right-angle right-hand turn and try to make your way up the hill next to the boards to the corner opposite the zam door.

The hockey-goal-boxes are still the worse part - doing a dance pattern which invariably goes into those hockey boxes is impossible - you feel like you are being pushed from behind and then you can't get back up the hill to do the restart. I'm wondering if it is easier with a partner - at least you have someone to hold onto when you feel like you are losing it!!

I have heard that the freestyle skaters are having trouble doing their programs because the jumps are often placed in the corners - they can do the jumps as individual elements in the middle of the ice (easier for loops and salchows and axels I suppose because of how those jumps are shaped - with a flip I would want some power coming into the jump by stroking up the long side first - [of course now that would be known as telegraphing - glad I don't freestyle anymore!!]) and the lutz is generally done headed into the corner but of course you don't have to do it that way) but when it comes to doing their programs the uneveness of the ice is wreaking havoc on the skaters, but I digress.

Okay the rumor is that the manager aparently said they were going to take the ice down in AUGUST and start all over. That's 4 months from now - I don't know if I can wait that long, really.

Can you?

Lloyd Center: The Big Winner!!

The votes are in and the Lloyd Center Ice Rink is the winner of the Portland Rink Report's "Favorite Skating Rink in PDX" poll.

Wow. I guess it was really no contest. The rink is centrally located, is warm and is pretty friendly. The downside is that it is small. Oh well, I guess that this is not really a problem for most of the readers of Portland Rink Report!!

Thanks for voting. I'll try to come up with a more interesting poll next time.