Centretown outdoor rinks gaining popularity

By Michael MacKinnon

Warmer weather may have cut this year’s outdoor skating season short, but the milder temperatures also attracted skaters to take advantage of Centretown’s outdoor rinks in record numbers.

For five years, Rene Lasscasse has worked as a rink operator. The past two winters he’s maintained the Jack Purcell Park rink, located between Frank and Elgin streets.

“The rinks were pretty popular this season,” said Lasscasse. “There were a lot of groups that could come out and skate.”
With average temperatures of -5.7 C for December, -5.6 C for January, and -5.7 C for February, the relatively mild weather made skating outdoors much more enjoyable for people, said Lasscasse. But it also made maintaining good skating ice more difficult. “I had to rebuild the rink three times, so I had to close it down more often,” said Lasscasse. Last season, he only rebuilt the rink twice.

A higher volume of skaters was also noticed at Plouffe Park rink.

“This winter had the highest turnout I’ve seen,” said Kendra McLellan.

She has been managing the Plouffe Park rink for three years and believes there are two main reasons it saw so many skaters.
The first is the weather: “The warm weather has made it so more people are out skating,” said McLellan.

The second reason is the quality of ice. “We have a great guy making our ice, so our skating conditions have been better than past years,” she said.

Ice makers are paid small stipends by the PPRA for making and maintaining the ice.

Jack Meyer lives at Bank and Gloucester streets and found himself frequenting local rinks more often this season than in past years.

“All three months the rinks were open, were warm and fun to skate outside,” he said. “I live right close to a few rinks so I have lots of options,” said Meyer.

Living along Bank Street, Meyer said he’s only a few blocks from the Jack Purcell rink and the Sens Rink of Dreams at City Hall.

The high turnout made supervision of the rinks more difficult. “We had about eight to 12 volunteers for supervision, but we need more people,” said McLellan.

This season the Ottawa Rinks webpage added a link allowing people to volunteer for rinks. “I think it will catch on now that people know the link is there,” said Lasscasse.

The closing date for the outdoor rinks in Ottawa was Feb. 28 this year – with the exception of the Sens Rink of Dreams, which closed in early March.