Different sized rinks

[black]

Most rinks are either official 60m x 30m (NHL being about 61m x 26m) or smaller "recreational/seasonal" sized, however I have noticed that there are quite a few that are a couple of metres smaller than the official size; why is that?

The sites that they are built on are huge anyhow so it can't be a space issue and I presume it wouldn't cost that much extra to chill a couple more metres of ice? And ice rinks, being a fairly specialist construction would be planned by experienced people. Has the official size changed over the years?

[blackmanskating]

Yeah I've noticed that too especially when I took my Bronze MITF. It threw me way off. My home rink is Olympic sized so skating on something way smaller than that completely threw me off. It made me have to reduce my speed significantly. What made it bad is that the facility is enormous!!! It had all these hallways and a huge pro shop. But the rink was incredibly narrow. It didn't even feel like a NHL sized one.


BlackManSkating

[Isk8NYC]

Unless the owners know enough to have the architect consult an expert, rink sizes are chosen for aesthetics or structural reasons.

Many older rinks were set up for recreational skating, so they don't conform to the standard sizes. I grew up skating on an outdoor rink that was so big that they were able to split it into two smaller-sized rinks, one standard size, one more narrow when they renovated years later. There's a newer rink nearby, which is NHL standard sized, but it fills most of the building and lot.

I also know of a fairly new swimming pool that was built as a recreational pool, but demand for swimming leagues forced them to install a "bridge" to allow standard lane lengths. Bridges are usually used to convert a 25 meter pool to a 25 yard pool, but in this case they had to have a custom one made just to match the 25 yard length needed.