They're laying an artificial icerink in the Netherlands!

[Sessy]

Hey! I know it won't do *me* any good right now, but on the other side of the country they're laying the first permanent artificial-ice rink in the Netherlands!
It's gonna be 6x60 metres (7x70 yards or so?) and it's gonna be a testing kind, but available to general public nonetheless.

They're laying it at the best ice rink in the Netherlands, on their parking lot. They think they can improve the slide of the artificial ice to over 100% of natural ice within 5-10 years. And they think artificial ice is a good option to make skating more available to the general public, because right now most cities don't have an ice rink - only large cities do.

So they think artificial ice rinks could be good for smaller cities, because we haven't had natural ice thick enough to skate on in some 10 years here in the Netherlands, so the "natural" ice rinks those cities used to have aren't really of any use anymore, and cooling systems are too expensive for smaller cities.

So yay for the skating sport in the Netherlands! This just might be its future!

[Skittl1321]

That's fantastic news!

I'm not sure I'd skate on artificial ice, but probably only because real ice is available. If it wasn't- I'd skate on whatever I could!

[kander]

They don't have *any* permanent rinks in the Holland? That's quite suprising. Especially considering the Dutch history in speed skating.

Kevin

[Sessy]

Actually, that's the problem. We have only 1 skating federation, which tends to the interests of hockeyers, figure skaters AND speed skaters. Except they don't, they're only interested in speed skaters (although with the great success of tv-shows like Dancing on Ice, they've realised figure skating exists at all). Problem is, the speed skaters train on rollers in summer, so they don't need to get ice for them (besides, they need different shaped rinks entirely in the first place). So, we do have rinks that stay open in summer - 2 of them. And even those close for 2-4 weeks in summer. But those rinks only have club ice during those months for the clubs who usually skate at those rinks, and sometimes for a few other clubs who are lucky enough AND book a year in advance (there's not nearly enough ice for everybody who wants to book). There's another rink, one way up north, open for 3 weeks in summer, but that's too short and too far away to do anybody any good.

Extremely stupid working law regulations keep the rinks from using the ice effectively either, because there's some severe time restrictions on when they can work (9 in the morning sessions is the earliest you'll get around here, and they can't work till midnight either) Apart from this, even in the 6 winter months, there's WAY too few ice rinks, and thus ice is pretty scarce, and people practice everything from learning to stand on skates to double axels on public ice, which is less than ideal. The only cities I know which have ice rinks, have a population of like 200 000. Smaller towns don't have ice rinks, the government doesn't build them. Why our rinks aren't private is a whole different story all together. Anyway, artificial ice doesn't need cooling systems, doesn't need as extensive licenses (for example, you don't need to build a special building for it, an existing sportshall will do).

And if you wouldn't need a ton of licenses, and it's affordable enough, rinks could be run private. Which could be a giant uplift for figure skaters.

BTW the fake ice they're laying now is meant to investigate "training opportunities for speed skaters", according to the skating federation.... And the magazine they send everybody monthly only has like 2 pages on figure skaters around the time the nationals are skated.

[Award]

The artificial rink sounds great. It's definitely better than no surface to skate on. Although I read before that the artificial rinks can get little shavings stuck in clothes etc. If that's true, that is that a bit of a problem? And can they get into eyes etc?

[Sessy]

I have heard they can ruin your clothes, but I thought the problem was the sillicon oil leaving stains... I've not heard of the shavings thing but, I don't think the chance is that great, compared to risks of other injuries skating involves, LOL!
I wonder how one picks on artificial ice though! Doesn't that leave dents?