Campbell Park rink opens Saturday December 4
The 2010-2011 outdoor ice skating season at Campbell Park kicks off on Saturday December 4th. There is a scheduled mix of shinny, pleasure skating, and paid-use times.
With the growing success of the family-oriented pleasure skating sessions and feedback from the community, a new 2-hour pleasure skating time slot has been added to this year's schedule: Saturdays from 4-6PM, Sundays from 1-3PM, and Mondays after school 3:30-5:30PM.
During the Saturday and Sunday pleasure skating times, local non-profit group CELOS will continue to set up a campfire and provide free hot chocolate and snacks for the skaters. This always adds a whole other fun, social, community-oriented feel to the pleasure skate. Some people even drop by just to hang out and chat with neighbours, even if they don't want to skate!
CELOS also provides skate rentals for only $2.
Some other ideas have been brewing for other community events at the park this winter. I will post more information as soon as I find out!
For more information about Campbell Park and the winter skating schedule, please visit the Campbell Park website.
Enjoy the park, and I hope to see you all out there.
Comments
Campbell and Wallace-Emerson rinks close this Sunday
Dear neighbours,
Most of Toronto's outdoor rinks, including the ones at Campbell and Wallace-Emerson close this Sunday. Dufferin Grove is scheduled to stay open an extra two weeks, but the last two years closed well before that. As spring approaches the sun rises higher in the sky which makes harder to maintain the ice. Already in February, there are problems with ice melting along the boards.
There is pleasure-skating all day at Wallace and Dufferin. At Campbell there is pleasure-skating 4-6pm Saturday and 1-3pm Sunday.
Michael Monastyrskyj
Campbell recreation staff
Reminder: Campbell rink closes today (Sunday)
Just a reminder to anyone who wants to skate or play hockey one more time this season. Today is your last chance to do that at Campbell. After today the compressors will be shut off. There is pleasure skating with a campfire 1-3pm. The rest of the day is all ages shinny. The rinkhouse closes at 6 but if you are willing to change outside you can play hockey until 11. (You can also skate after 6 but you might not feel comfortable if there are a lot of hockey players.) Wallace-Emerson rink also closes today. It has two ice pads so there will be hockey and pleasure skating all day long. (The hockey schedule has age groups.) The rinkhouse closes at 9.
Dufferin Grove, City Hall and some other city-operated rinks are scheduled to stay open two more weeks, but whether they do will depend on the weather. The last two years Dufferin ended up shutting earlier because the sun was too strong to maintain good ice. Harbourfront, which isn't run by the City, will also be open in March. I'm not sure when Harbourfront closes but I think it will be open at least two more weeks.
Evening pleasure skating at Campbell this Friday, 6-9pm
Some people in the neighbourhood have told us it would be good to have pleasure-skating on a weekday evening. Other people have asked for music during skating. This Friday January 28 Campbell will have a special evening pleasure skating event from 6 to 9pm. There will be a campfire and music. We invite everybody to come out for a skate and hot chocolate by the fire. Campbell has $2 skate rentals (govt-issued ID, eg. driver's licence required). We only have a limited number of skates. Come early to get a pair that fit you.
Family & youth shinny (hockey) Sundays 3:10-4:30pm
There is a new time slot on Campbell's skating schedule: family & youth shinny Sundays 3:10-4:30pm, right after Sunday pleasure skating. We've noticed that some of the parents who come for pleasure-skating like to play hockey with their children. This can sometimes be hard because hockey at Campbell is usually fast-paced. The idea behind the new time slot is to create some space for parents and younger hockey players looking for slower-paced hockey.
Just a reminder, we have the following pleasure-skating hours at Campbell:
Saturday 4-6pm (with campfire and free hot chocolate)
Sunday 1-3pm (with campfire and free hot chocolate)
followed by Family & youth shinny 3:10-4:30pm
Monday 3:30-5:30pm (no campfire)
Monday Skating
The family and I finally made it out to the rink this past Monday. We had a great time and bumped into a few of our neighbours too. Hung out in the rinkhouse for hot chocolate afterwards. It was really quite perfect. Looking forward to some more ice time this coming weekend!
Skating hours at Campbell rink
Campbell rink opened on Sat. Dec. 4. After much discussion among staff and members of the community, staff decided on these pleasure skating hours
Saturday 4-6pm skating and campfire
Sunday 1-3pm skating and campfire
Monday 3:30-5:30pm skating
We know there are people in the neighbourhood who think Campbell's schedule is weighted too much in favour of hockey. We take that opinion seriously and are open to adding more pleasure-skating hours, including possibly pleasure skating on one or more weekday evenings. What we do in the future will depend mostly on the turnout we get for the current hours. If you would like to comment on the schedule or the rink in general, please send an email to mail@campbellpark.ca Finally, I'd like to remind everyone that Wallace-Emerson, at Dufferin and Dupont, just south of the Galleria mall has all-day pleasure skating every day of the week.
Thanks
Thank you Michael. We're looking forward to returning to Campbell Park for the upcoming skating season.
Pleasure skating and other Campbell rink questions
Last year we had very good turnouts for Saturday pleasure-skating. If we have good turnouts on Sundays and Mondays this year, there may be room for a few more hours on the schedule. Also, we are giving serious consideration to the suggestion we move the Monday pleasure-skating period to Wednesday. On the one hand, we don't want to make too many mid-season changes, because consistency is important. On the other hand, we do want to respond to what the community wants. If anyone wants to offer comments and suggestions about the rink please send an email to mail@campbellpark.ca Also, I am available to meet with people one on one to talk about the rink. We can even do it over beer or coffee. Finally, Campbell staff get a lot of questions about the rink. Some of the questions are pretty basic because they come from people new to the neighbourhood or to the city. I have written an article about the rink where I try to include the information people usually ask me: A few words about the rink