Why Why Why can't they turn on the lights? I know we are all trying to save energy.
But is there something about figure skaters (and public recreational skaters) that don't need light to skate? Do hockey players need more light than figure skaters?
Yesterday morning I went to Valley to do a critique for one of the adult skaters who is working on a Moves test. The lighting was the dark and dingy stuff and I wasn't feeling so well in that my head was stuffed and I felt dizzy. The lighting didn't help. So I asked this adult student's coach if she could have the guys turn up the lights so that I could do a proper critique - with lights!!
So the coach went in and asked and came back to say that they were told not to turn the lights up for the public session. Okay. BUT the coach (and her family) own the rink!! Doesn't that count for anything???
So I had a dull and dismal skate, didn't stay long, that's for sure... although I did notice that 2/3 of the way through the session the lights were up - they have to start warming the lights up early for the big hockey session that follows...
Nothing makes sense anymore (am I have a life-crisis? Am I going to go all philosophical on you guys?).
And other thing (here comes the whine of the why's) - I took a look at the schedule that is on the internet. It says that Thursday morning there is a freestyle before the public session at 9:30. Well, this comes as news to me because I thought they used Thursday morning for "ice maintenance" - which is why I like to go for the public -- the ice is clean and good on Thursday morning and I can sort of count on it.
So I called this afternoon to get some clarification. Of course the guy I spoke to didn't really know much, but he didn't think they were doing ice-maintenance on Thursday mornings since the schedule says there is freestyle...
Why don't they advertise the change in schedule? Don't they kow by this time that figure skaters are creatures of habit and like to schedule skating around the rest of their busy lives? Do they think we wake up one morning and think, "Oh, I think I'll go ice-skating?"
Our recreation, our exercise, our passion, is kind of like a job... for better or worse, for most of us we need some kind of structure for the practice.
Anyway, I digress once again.
I guess it's time to program the rink's number into my cell phone so that any time I might get up and think, "Oh, I think I'll go ice-skating" I will call first to make sure that there is ice. Especially when gas is $4/gallon (and rising...).
1 comment:
Most rinks that I've been at don't turn all the lights on for anything except hockey. That said, Sherwood usually has lights at 3/4 for public session and freestyle, so that's not bad. My old rink in Tucson used to have only 1/2 lights on the back ice for freestyle.
As for schedules -- Valley does seem to be bad about that. You could print out the schedule from the web page, but they do change it from time to time and it's definitely worth checking.
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