Make Your Thoughts about Campbell and other Rinks Known

Campbell rink has certainly improved in the past 2 years and here is an opportunity to help make it better. As part of an initiative by CELOS to deal with ongoing issues at the City's outdoor rinks the public are invited to email their concerns which will be presented to the City Ombudsman. Read the blog story at this link.

http://bloorlansdowne.blogspot.com/2010/01/are-there-any-problems-at-tor...

The email address to send your concerns is: mail@cityrinks.ca

For reference I am including my letter which may or may not jive with your impressions but use it as an example of what could be sent in. Support our community rink, or the rink that you use.
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Campbell rink over the past 2 years has benefited from new civic engagement and is slowly making this rink a friendlier place for all residents.

Previously the rink was an un-friendly dirty space filled with foul mouthed hockey players and never ever did you see a girl there. It was a civic disgrace.

Behold that for the first time in 9 years I am seeing families pleasure skating, children learning to skate, and girls of all ages on the ice. A local mom told me a few weeks ago that she was too intimidated to take her family skating until this year. Bravo to the new energy that is being put into this rink.

This rink belongs to the entire community.

Suggestion, Concerns

The change house needs a proper info board to post changes and special events and even photos that people may want to post.

Skating hours are posted on paper taped to the walls and it seems to me that there needs to be a more formal showing of schedules so nobody can say they did not know what time things start and stop.

I would like to see some pleasure skating on Sunday afternoon as well. There is more than enough hockey and shinny time already, in my experience used by the same core group of players day after day. Another hour or hour and a half on Sunday say 4-530pm would be a great opportunity for families to skate together and make a very small dent in the sizable amount of hours available to hockey people. It is important to understand that there are other hockey rinks in the area and families, especially moms, are the least able to hike over to another rink whereas for teenage boys this is not as big of an issue.

The ice conditions at Wallace suck. Especially for pleasure skaters who always seem to get the chewed up end of day ice. I am totally aware of the lack of a melter on site but on January 2and it seemed to me that the Zaboni crew got on and off the ice in under 20 minutes which is just not possible if one is going to provide a good (not great ice surface). I didn’t mind that it happened in the middle of the pleasure skate but it was hardly worth the delay if they are not going to do a good job. I don’t know why there is no schedule that they can keep; I have seen at other rinks that the Zamboni always comes out at a scheduled time.

I would like to see time set aside for adult female hockey. There are many women who play in our area but are shut out.

Lastly, and I guess it relates to the ice quality issue, it has always been my feeling that Parks staff consider Campbell Park and Rink as a second class facility. Part of that has been the community not demanding more and I think everybody fell into a rut that we are now emerging from. I would like to see some more evidence from Parks that this facility is as important as any other facility especially in terms of the “if you have an issue go to another rink/community centre” vibe that seemed for many years to be the default Parks answer to any concerns or issues.

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Campbell skating rink

I feel that there needs to be a better balance between hockey and family/pleasure skating on the Campbell ice rink. Specifically, the time given to both sports ought to be shared equally. After all, we all pay taxes. It is ridiculous that family skating is only once per week for a couple of hours.