New "Coffee Club"

This week I decided to venture up to the Mt. View Ice Arena in Vancouver, WA to try out their new Adults-only session "Coffee Club" which is Mondays and Wednesdays from 12:15 - 1:45. Usually I don't find this noontime skate to be very convenient to my very laid-back veterinary housecall schedule, but I had the day off and wanted to check it out since this session may be one of the only "hazard-free" summer sessions in the area that I can attend.

By "hazard-free" I mean no kids, no wild freestylers (well, maybe there will be some wild adult free-stylers...), no busloads of school or camp groups, no hockey players or hockey lessons... just adult skaters quietly doing their thing...

It was a cold June day and the rink was very cold. I asked if there was any heat anywhere and they said they don't leave it on unless they are having an event (apparently they save $7,000/month by not turning it on). It was really cold!! For the first time ever I wore my long coat (lined) onto the ice - I figured if my coach can do it, so can I!!

But I was the only one there and they had cleaned the ice and left the lights on, which was great. I asked the guy at the desk about the lights and he says he sometimes turns them down lower but today he would leave them up (yea!).

I was able to go through some figures and eventually took the long coat off. It was kind of lonely and I didn't play any music or anything (reminding me of the old "patch" days - we never even thought to put music on back then). Finally another one of the adult dancers came - so great - now I had some company!

The ice was BEAUTIFUL! At first I kind of had to get used to that hollow sound the ice makes when you strike the ice, but after a while I got used to it and really felt like I was flying around. No ruts or bumps really - no obstacles of any kind. We put on some music (I only had one CD with me) and eventually a hockey guy came out and skated - and then there was one woman who probably hadn't skated before and he stayed with her for the remainder of the session.

Apparently these sessions haven't really caught on yet... but this is how it started in Sherwood when they first had the coffee club - for about the first year or so there were only a couple of people, but rather than have "dead ice" they just kept the session and eventually it filled up and is very popular.

I had to ask for my coffee and there were no cookies in sight, but since I'm off sugar so that was no big deal.

Nice session. I will go again and hopefully some of my "ice-starved" adult skating friends will come and skate with me. I don't want to go lonely-skating this summer!!