With the arrival of spring comes an end to Thorold’s outdoor skating season—the perfect time to finally solve the case of the missing skating rink.
As ThoroldToday reported, on January 24 the city announced the opening of an outdoor skating rink in the Rolling Meadows subdivision. However, ThoroldToday made multiple attempts to find the rink during skating season, but was not able to locate it.
At Tuesday’s city council meeting, councillor Carmen DeRose asked City Hall staff what had happened to the rink.
“I was a little concerned because I’ve had a lot of reports from kids that live in the neighbourhood,” DeRose said. “They weren’t really able to skate there hardly at all. A lot of kids ended up skating on one of those ponds that are dangerous with the moving water. I was just curious how successful it was.”
Curtis Dray, the city’s manager of community services, was on hand to reveal the skating rink’s fate.
“We had a lot of snow drifting across that field,” Dray told council. “It was hard to maintain. It was a great idea, a great concept. It sounds like the location was less than desirable.”
Even though the skating rink, which cost the city about $2,200, was not a success, councillors urged City Hall staff to not give up on the concept.
“People thought it was a great idea to have it outdoors, especially with COVID,” said councillor Nella Dekker. “A few people [said] that it was hard to find the location of it. Hopefully next year try it again.”
