skating in SF Bay area and Boston

[oz01]

For those of you who are familar with both areas, which one do you prefer skating wise? I am surprised that skating in Boston seems more expensive than in bay area. Is there any rinks you would suggest?

Thank you!

[jazzpants]

On SF Bay Area: Depends on what you're looking for. Are you looking for good FS sessions with qualified coaches, or are you looking to just skate around.

I recommend my home rink, Yerba Buena in San Francisco, as a base rink and then go from there depending on where you are along the Bay Area and what you're looking for in skating.

I'll let the guys who's skated at Boston answer the Boston part of the answer. ;)

[Isk8NYC]

You do realize these areas are thousands of miles away from each other, right?

SF Bay has a warmer year-round average climate than Boston, where snow and ice are common in the winter. Additionally, skating has been around in Boston far longer than SF Bay, as a result the Boston rinks are older, located in heavily populated areas where land values and taxes are high. While SF Bay has higher air conditioning costs, Boston's rinks have both heat and air conditioning, along with snow removal maintenance expenses.

The major difference is that Massachusetts has a number of community rinks, where the taxpayers pay for part of the expenses of running the rink. In California, I believe the rinks are private or owned by partnerships. There's more pressure to make a profit than there is in Massachusetts and they strive to do it through volume of customers/programs rather than providing a service to the community.

[flo]

I lived in Boston for a year and did not care for the skating "community". The skating club of Boston required a $400 bond to join and had more requirements and rules than any other rink I've ever seen. The pros were snarky to adults and to eachother for that matter (when they weren't dealing out of the back room). The members spent most of the time gossiping and turning in parents to social services. You couldn't solo in their show unless you medaled at a national event, and even then you had to participate in the group numbers. I skated there for the open sessions and competitions and would not leave my skates unattended.

I spent more time skating at Colonial, further out of the city.

[Schmeck]

flo, my daughter skates synchro out of SCOB, and we've experienced none of those issues. Her team skated in Ice Chips, and because they qualified for nationals they skated in the second half, with Sasha Cohen. :bow:

The SCOB has a huge number of really good skaters, so a line has to be drawn somewhere with who gets to skate a solo or not. Even the very small club we belong to has rules about who gets to skate a solo in the spring show. No one wants to sit through a 4 hour show...

We've had nothing but friendly encounters at the actual rink, including the pros and the board members. I get at least a "Hi" out of everyone I walk past as they leave the rink (we're always skating right after a high-test session, it seems, as we witness double axels and triple/double combos all the time) and have never had an issue with any 'back room dealing'. Sorry you didn't have a better experience.

Now, Colonials we had a problem with, but it was minor and silly and many of our friends skate there/have skated there and they enjoy it.

To the OP - when you mean the Boston area, how far into the suburbs are you talking? We know most of the clubs in the Boston area, SCOB is probably the best known and the strongest, but there are great clubs in the 'burbs that are more low key and less expensive. The rinks here do tend to be old and cold, but the cold is mainly due to the very large hockey population.

[oz01]

Thank you all for the information!

You do realize these areas are thousands of miles away from each other, right?


Yes!:)
We are deciding where to move in the next couple of months and of course skating is the most important part when I list all the pros and cons for both cities (OK, may be the second most importand next to schools for the kids. ) I really hope I can afford my daughter's skating, mine too if possible.

To the OP - when you mean the Boston area, how far into the suburbs are you talking?
I don't know yet. The work is close to Harvard medical school and if I take the offer, I don't know where we are going to live yet.

Thanks again!

[oz01]

The skating club of Boston required a $400 bond to join and had more requirements and rules than any other rink I've ever seen.

That's what I heard too

[oz01]

I recommend my home rink, Yerba Buena in San Francisco, as a base rink and then go from there depending on where you are along the Bay Area and what you're looking for in skating.


Thank you! I found the website for your rink and a list of coaches. Would you recommand some for us? Do you know if the Belmont ice rink is good?

[WeirFan06]

Do you know if the Belmont ice rink is good?

Belmont is a much smaller and older rink (i.e. it's not as "pretty" as yerba buena with that huge window and everything) but I started going there about a year ago when we had problems with the ice in SF and they had to close the rink for like 3 weeks. At first I was nervous going to a new rink... especially one that isn't known for having a huge adult skating community, but everyone there was so nice, it turned out it didn't really matter. The kids are all nice, and they all get along with eachother, as do most of the parents and adults. There are some extremely good coaches at Belmont... most of the "adult" coaches are at yerba buena, but for kids there are some awesome coaches at Belmont. Not that they wouldn't teach adults probably... it just doesn't seem like they have any right now. I'll send you a private message with their names, and some names of coaches from YB too. Good luck with your decision. It's just a guess since I've never skated on the east coast, but as with most things they're probably a little more intense out there than we are (or what we perceive as intense, lol)... but we have a lot of fun out here :D

[icedancer2]

I lived in Boston for a year and did not care for the skating "community". The skating club of Boston required a $400 bond to join and had more requirements and rules than any other rink I've ever seen. The pros were snarky to adults and to eachother for that matter (when they weren't dealing out of the back room). The members spent most of the time gossiping and turning in parents to social services. You couldn't solo in their show unless you medaled at a national event, and even then you had to participate in the group numbers. I skated there for the open sessions and competitions and would not leave my skates unattended.

I spent more time skating at Colonial, further out of the city.

Sorry Schmeck, I'd have to agree with flo - SCOB to the outsider is basically a *cough*bunchofsnobs*cough* Once you're in, though, you are IN and then you get the nice treatment, get to attend the Friday night dinners, etc., etc. [And I'm not the only one who feels that way - believe me, a very high profile skater once confessed to me, a veritable stranger, that they also felt this way about the place...]

I found my home in Boston in one of the Southshore suburbs (even though I lived in Cambridge) - Hingham - at the Pilgrim Recreation Center and my US Figure Skating membership was as an Individual Member at that time. As an icedancer, the individual membership gave me the freedom to go to dance sessions almost any day of the week at the various rinks in the area and then I would practice at the City and County and State-owned rinks for very little money - sometimes having the ability to have empty ice for $2 on a snowy morning off - beautiful!

Harvard Medical School is in Jamaica Plain I believe (or is it... anyone? it's been a while since I lived there) and so you are close to SCOB if you end up living near the medical school but there are so many other rinks as well, and yes they are cold, but generally pretty well-maintained and really cheap...

Good luck with your decision - I think both places are on my top 5 places to live and both have skating - so how to choose? I myself would choose to live in Boston again - the skating there was great!

[oz01]

I'll send you a private message with their names, and some names of coaches from YB too.

Thank you so much! I PMed you back:)

[oz01]

Good luck with your decision - I think both places are on my top 5 places to live and both have skating - so how to choose? I myself would choose to live in Boston again - the skating there was great!

Thank you very much! We switch back and forth everyday. Before I saw your reply, I kind of leaned toward SF. Now I am in the middle again. :)

[wasabi]

I've skated at SCOB as an "outsider," and never had any problems. Granted, one of my coaches was there at the time, and I'm a higher-level, non-adult skater, but I wasn't a member of the club and would certainly be considered an outsider.

[kander]

My home is the SF area and that's where I've done most of my skating. I used to take my skates with me on business trips and I landed in Boston once. Truly, the worst skating experience I ever had was at a rink in Boston. I forget, but I think it was a SCOB rink (it was in a hangar shaped building). The session itself sucked, and then I got a flat tire in the parking lot and had to walk a couple miles in the rain in the middle of the night to find a phone.

Having said all that, I'm sure my experience was an anomaly. There must be good places to skate although I don't know where they are.

I've skated at all the rinks in the Bay Area (most of the rinks in California for that matter). I would definetly recommend California for 2 reasons. 1) the weather is warm, especially in the winter and 2) the adult skating community is large and supported. On top of that, 2 of the 3 most beautiful rinks I've ever been at are here. One is the Snoopy rink in Santa Rosa, and the other is the rink at Squaw Valley (but only in the summer). FYI the third is in southern California (the lake Arrowhead rink). And we have Logitec Ice in San Jose which has 4 ice sheets and an adults only session on tuesday nights.

I always wanted to visit the outdoor rink at Sun Valley as I imagine it must be quite beautiful there.

Kevin

[blue111moon]

SC of Boston is one of the oldest and more expensive clubs in the area, but there are many other clubs and rinks in an surrounding the city. North Shore SC, Wilmington, Winchester are a few, plus the colleges themselves have collegiate skating clubs with ice time at their rinks. Harvard has one, as do Northeastern, MIT and Boston College - and I don't believe they're limited to only undergrad students.

And then there are the state-owned rinks and the city-run MDC rinks (there's a seasonal one just down the road from SCoB) that provide ice as well. And in winter there's the Frog Pond on Boston Common for truly nostallgic sport. :)

You can check out some of the local clubs at www.neicc.org or for the state-owned ones at www.fmcarenas.com

I've been to SCoB many many times and find that the atmosphere depends on who's in the building at the moment. Generally the people are nice but there are a few...

But then there are a few .... in almost every rink everywhere.

[flo]

Schmeck - perhaps there have been some changes. It was a very unfriendly atmosphere when I was there. Coahes being arrested, drugs, and the gossip was non stop. And the adults there were just as bad - turning in parents to social services, stealing.... it was quite a place.

[Mrs Redboots]

I had hoped to skate at the "hangar-shaped rink" in 1998 during my first visit to the USA, but, alas, went down with a badly upset tum and couldn't. But we did call in there to pick up a skating friend and I noticed that all the skaters were wearing very smart practice-dresses, not like our rink at home where anything goes!

More recently we skated at the Colonial figure skating club in (where is it, BlueIIIMoon, I've forgotten again!), well, out of town, anyway, and loved it.

I didn't skate when I was in SF, as Adult Nationals were held there that year at Oakland and the (now sadly defunct) Berkeley rink, but I do know there's a wonderful adult skating community in the city. As, indeed, there is in Massachusetts...

[cecealias]

I have not posted in a while here but I will give my 0.02 about Boston and SF.

I have lived in Boston greater are (Cambridge to be exact) for a solid 5 years plus I travel there at least 3 times a year now on a regular basis. My home port is San Francisco.

As a freestyle skater, I would not give up skating in the SF bay area to train in Boston. It is eons easier to train in the bay area year round, almost any time, any day, weather wise and the coaches are great.

My major complaint about boston is the lack of summer skating. Winter is ok and very good if you have access to a university rink. In the summer, If you don't have a car, there is only 1 rink in the Boston downtown area. Unless you are willing to bend your work/life schedule like crazy in Boston, it is almost impossible to train there. In the summer -- Keep in mind you can only do dance in the mornings, and there are no freestyles available in the morning unless you want to drive to colonial which is 1+ hr away. Or you could go to Babson (35 minute drive if you're lucky on the turnpikey) which has freestyles 2x a week in the mid afternoon for the summer. Mind you, you can't drive super fast on those roads going into and out of boston, they're small and with lots of stop signs! To make it worse, skating sessions at SCOB are sorted by skating test level so that you can't fit in a freestyle that is convenient to your schedule, you can only go at a specific hour. In addition, the FS sessions were 40 or 50 minutes for $16 walk on when i went. I totally give up. :giveup:

In the SF bay area, you can go morning, noon or night to any of the rinks, Yerba Buena ($12 FS walkon, Downtown SF on top of the convention center, how much better you wanna get for visitors??) , Belmont ($10 FS walkon, 25 min drive from SF) , Oakland ($12 FS walkon, 15-20 min from SF), San Mateo ($7 Public walkon, 18min from SF), San Jose (1 -1.5 hr from SF), Santa Rosa, etc etc. Oh and you can floor it to 80mph on the CA highway when the traffic is low, um maybe i shouldn't say that... These rinks are open year round too!! You have morning AND afternoon freestyle, public, and dance if you want. Every weekday there are up to 4 open morning FS sessions at YB, and 3 open FS sessions at Belmont. There are no restricted levels and if you don't make it there early enough you can skate after noon or midday as well. Sometimes they won't even kick you off after the session is over, they'll let you dally around. That's how nice the folks are here. Totally awesome :lol:

Oh, and btw, if you like the sun, don't move to Boston. There isn't any most of the year. Sorry but the weather is almost always grey dismal there.

I have A LOT extremely useful information, please PM me and we can chat. Cheerios.

[blue111moon]

Well, the sun's shining right now. :) And it's been a decent summer. I suppose I shouldn't mention the San Francisco fog that never seemed to burn off before 10:00 AM and rolled back in about 5:00 PM ever day that I was there? Boston doesn't have that.

There's way more ice in the Boston area than there used to be. Colonial (the rinks that Mrs. Redboots mentioned, in Acton/Boxoborough) is open year round and have lots of ice (although split by level, too - that's what happens when you have a lot of skaters in the area; you can't safely throw them all on the same ice at the same time), as are North Shore and New England. Sometimes it's easier to get out of the city to find ice than to stay downtown where traffic is a nightmare.

I guess it all comes down to what you know. I've skated in SF and didn't particularly care for the facilities or the people, but it was a long time ago so things have probably changed. I do think twice about going back, though. Plus, I know all the rinks and most of the people in New England so it's a pretty safe bet that I can find somewhere congenial to skate at just about any given time.

Is one better than the other? I guess it depends on the individual.

[cecealias]

The fantastic thing about the SF bay area is that you can pick your weather. So if you go any direction for 5 mins in a car, its a totally different weather pattern. You want sun? You can always get it here. That just doesn't exist in Boston, as far as I have experienced in all of 5 years and counting living there.

[oz01]

Thank you all so much! I really appreciate all your information!

[BigBaaadBob]

Right. The sun never shines in Boston (even though it has been beautiful here all summer). And the Skating Club of Boston is just like a scene out of Mad Max (even though the 500 family members don't have a clue what that means). And you can't possibly train there (even though the Club typically sends 30 competitors to Jr and Sr Nationals each year and has numerous JGP medalists and the current Junior Men's World Champion, two theatre-on-ice teams that have won the international for the last three years running [one of which is an adult team, btw], up-and-coming syncro teams, etc...). The place sucks, even though it is a world renown training center. Riiight... :roll:

I can tell you authoritatively that a lot of the above is BS. You can go to weather.com and check out the past weather for yourself and decide what you like. I'm a past director and past membership chair at SCOB, and current active member. If you have questions about membership fees or coaching staff, simply call the club and ask. The contact information is at the Club website at scboston.org.

You can believe what you want, but if you are going to make such an important decision as where to move and what job to take and where to train, don't you think it is worth the few hundred dollars to get a cheap plane ticket and check out the place yourself?

[cecealias]

Just because a club produces a lot of champions doesn't mean its the ideal place for all skaters to train, especially if they aren't competitive ( aka recreational ). In fact it would be less than ideal, you wouldn't get your bang for the buck.

School's the same way. Magnet schools are top of the line but it's only great for the top of the line elite students, its not really for everyone. My opinion, if you're at that elite level, join the elites because that's good for you. If you're not going to be elite, it just isn't comfortable to be there or fun or fair.

oh and btw, there is no such thing as a snow day here in the Bay area (just promoting the fantastic *year round* weather we have here ;))

[oz01]

You can believe what you want, but if you are going to make such an important decision as where to move and what job to take and where to train, don't you think it is worth the few hundred dollars to get a cheap plane ticket and check out the place yourself?

Yes, I did buy a very cheap plane ticket and checked out the place myself. But I got so much more information here (thank you all again!). SCOB is a wonderful club and nobody here tried to deny that, but i do agree that $400/year membership fee and FS sessions are way too expensive.

[jazzpants]

Yes, I did buy a very cheap plane ticket and checked out the place myself. But I got so much more information here (thank you all again!). SCOB is a wonderful club and nobody here tried to deny that, but i do agree that $400/year membership fee and FS sessions are way too expensive.And to add to the equation...Skating Club of San Francisco (my club...) $95 (Home Club Member) It doesn't require you to go to Club Ice, then it would depend on which rink and which FS session (http://www.scsf.org/iceschedule/icetime.html) you go to.

I personally prefer the option of NOT having to go to Club Ice b/c I prefer to sleep in during the weekends. :P :halo: :lol: But I do have a punch card this year b/c I'll be skating at one of the Club Ice session during the winter months to avoid the Christmas crowds.