Ice in California?

[vesperholly]

I was doing some research online for ice schedules offered by clubs, and I wanted to get a wide geographic spectrum to boost the credibility. I looked at every club website in California that I could find, and the few that had ice schedules posted had 1-3 hours MAX! My club has about 40 hours of ice per week, most for private freestyle ice and about 9 hours for learn to skate classes. It seems like there are similar situations in the east/some midwest but I'd like to get a better variety.

This is how it works here: The rink has the ice. The club must purhase ice in hour/half-hour blocks from the rink (purchased in seasons Sept-June, July-Aug), as well as negotiate with the hockey organizations for the times. This is all done at a meeting with ice committee chairs from the orgs and the rink's ice manager.

The club then sells that purchased ice to club members, and regulates how many people are on a session, which levels can be on a session, which coaches can teach on the club ice, etc. The club also must absorb any monetary losses on sessions that do not break even, but also keeps any profits from learn to skate and sessions that make money.

I'm wondering how you guys get ice out there. Are rinks cooperative in allowing lessons on public sessions and giving you good times? I'm really interested in how it works out there since it doesn't seem to be the same at all.

Jocelyn

[iceskaterdawn]

I skated at a variety of rinks in the Los Angeles area when I was living in California. Most of the rinks have a good number of freestyle sessions a day, but they are not run by the club. They are run by the rink. Also most of the rinks allowed freestyle skating and lessons on the public sessions. During the weekdays, the morning public sessions were better to skate on than the freestyles. The public sessions are a lot less crowded than the freestyles. On occaision there would be a group from a school and then it wouldn't be fun, but otherwise it wasn't too bad. Even most of the rinks I've skated at here in Illinois only have a few hours of club ice, and it is the rink that runs all of the othe freestyle sessions.

Dawn

[BABYSKATES]

In the rinks where my daughter has skated in California, the clubs don't run the learn to skate classes - the rink does, sometimes in affilliation with ISI but not always. The coaches aren't hired or recruited by the clubs. The coaches are either employees of the rink or are independant contractors and belong to what ever club they choose to join. Kids from all sorts of clubs skate on the same ice and are coached by the same coaches. The clubs are only necessary for competition and testing. You can be an independant member of course, but most people join a club to represent for competition and to take their tests with.

My daughter has skated on club ice before but rarely. The times are few and far between and often at inconvenient times. We just buy her freestyle sessions in bulk at the cheapest rate and skate when is most convenient for her and her coaches.

I think I like what you're describing much better. Perhaps it would keep kids from having to abort half of their jumps and from distorting their patterns in their programs to avoid wiping out beginners who can't move fast enough or who don't know how to get out of the way. It can be a zoo. :roll: