Waterfront rink 'worth every ounce of effort': city

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Despite challenges caused by warmer weather this winter, the city’s director of parks, recreation and tourism says the skating rink at the Promenade Waterfront gazebo was a success.

“The weather wasn’t the most co-operative as far as making ice was concerned, but despite that, I think we consider our first attempt as a success,” Ryan Wilbur said.

The skating rink opened in mid-January once temperatures were cold enough to sustain an ice surface.

Wilbur said ice plant employees from the K.C. Irving Regional Centre created the initial base of the ice surface and then maintained it, which included regular inspection and maintenance to ensure it was safe for public use.

“It was certainly a learning process,” he said.

For a number of years, residents had been requesting a skating rink in Coronation Park, but the discussion was always around the amount of city manpower that would be required to prepare and maintain such a rink in a location that’s not plowed in the winter.

At the waterfront, Wilbur said the most time-consuming part of the project was building the foundation of the ice.

“Once it was already in, the level of maintenance was fairly manageable for us,” he said. “It was really just the occasional flooding and we had snowfalls and keeping that clear.”

Wilbur said despite the periodic closures caused by the warmer weather, the rink was well-used by the public.

“The response that we had from the public was overwhelmingly positive,” he said.

With the positive response and overall success, Wilbur said the city intends to pursue the project again next winter, hoping for more consistent cold temperatures.

“It was certainly an abbreviated season by a month or two from what we were hoping for when we started the planning,” he said.

“For us, from the city’s standpoint, it was worth every ounce of effort.”