Seriously, today and yesterday were the absolute worst where I work for people skating through our coned off center, hanging out in it, and just being generally rude when asked politely to leave. So, I wonder what people actually do think those cones are there for!

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Oops! Don't know how I forgot "All of the above!" Can't edit it either. Feel free to chime in with your guesses.

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You left out my favorite one "for the hockey-types to kick across the rink and see how far they can go!"

My rink(s) do not cone off anything in the center. If there is a lesson they cone off the end OR put up the barriers across 1/3 of the ice. These are the LARGE FOAM BLOCKS that extend from one end to the other. Much safer/better and rather hard to miss!

It is annoying, and I know your frustration! We still have skaters (mostly the kids) that forget that the center is for spinning.

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Skate@Delaware
Ah, show skating!!! I do it for the glitter!

You forgot "use them as a voice enhancer for loud, obnoxious, screamy kids" and "put on the head of dad with kid on shoulders to look like pinoccio and skate into somebody because he can't see properly"
At our rink they actually use wooden bulkheads. Seriously. The cones are only there when the city gives skating lessons on public sessions to schoolkids as part of a get-kids-interested-in-sport-before-they-get-fat programme. Luckily they don't start for the first hour of the public session, by which point most figure skaters who got there have trained for at least a half an hour and their trip wasn't completely for nothing. It becomes pretty much impossible to do anything after that, although it can be mildly amusing to unlace and stretch within hearing distance of the first-aid desk and watch darwin's theory at work... I swear, the mentally-challenged group of difficult-to-educate kids who get there twice or thrice a season are smarter than most of the moms (and dads occasionally) who accompany their kids. For starters, the mentally challenged bunch had no problem understanding the concept of skating circles around the perimeter, counterclockwise instead of clockwise against the traffic and along the center, nor did they try to balance standing on top of the boardings with skates on, or play bowling with innocent bypassers and one of the kids as a bowling ball! Just HOW did these people think that was gonna end, huh?!

Makes you think just who has more brains, huh...

YES I'm grumpy today.

You also forgot one more response...

"Cones? What cones!?!?! I didn't see any cones.... Oh, there's <big brother's name>!!! Come back here!!! I'm gonna catch you..."



I think the little 6 year old don't even know that the cones are there... they just want to skate thru to chase their bigger sibling. (The parents (usually moms) are often NOT on the ice with them. It's like "I can't skate! Who's gonna take care of the kids if I break an ankle or something? Who's gonna drive them around?" The ones with Dads attached to them don't usually break this rule, of course...)

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Cheers,
jazzpants

11-04-2006: Shredded "Pre-Bronze FS for Life" Club Membership card!!!
Silver Moves is the next "Mission Impossible"
(Dare I try for Championship Adult Gold someday???)

Thank you for the support, you guys!!!

How about, "to imprison the mean scary figure skating lady who says things like, "I'm sorry but if you skate through the middle when I am spinning I may accidentally stab you with my sharp toepick and poke your eye out, kid,"??

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You miss 100% of the shots you never take.--Wayne Gretzky

[QUOTE=Sessy;380433 "put on the head of dad with kid on shoulders to look like pinoccio and skate into somebody because he can't see properly"
[/QUOTE]

Okay, this is my new favorite reason for cones. Although it doesn't happen at my rink because of Mean Scary Figure Skating Lady (see my previous post).

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You miss 100% of the shots you never take.--Wayne Gretzky

One of the few reasons the our rink puts out cones is to mark off a hole from when the roof leaks, or a spot where a kid just had an "accident" and they are waiting for it to freeze so they can scrape it off.

Parents will often move the cones so their toddler can push it. Which often results in the child falling right there. When it's the second case, I always take great joy in telling the parent the cone needs to stay there to mark where the rink needs to clean. It horrifies them that their kid fell in pee, which wouldn't have happened, if they left the cone alone.

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-Jessi
What I need is a montage...
Visit my skating journal or my Youtube videos (updated with 2 new videos Sept 26, 2009)

Ironically, this is one of the rationales behind the Girl Scout "Safety Wise" rule that leaders cannot skate with their troop.

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-Jessi
What I need is a montage...
Visit my skating journal or my Youtube videos (updated with 2 new videos Sept 26, 2009)

None of the above. They don't think!

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"You don't have to put an age limit on your dreams." - Dara Torres, 41, after her 2nd medal at the 2008 Olympics

Thanks guys! I knew you would cheer me up! Eight hours in the skates today, most of it trying to teach while dodging the cone dummies.

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Our rink looks like a halloween party there are so many orange cones out there. First off, there's the jump and spin area, then inside the jump and spin area parts are coned off because the netting is beginning to come up and there's some ice issue. Then there's the cones marking off the area for birthday parties, and occasionally cones to mark where the sand is heaving.

Surprisingly, no one moves them.

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Great forum quotes:
On Falling: '...it doesn't matter, it's what you do AFTER you fall that's more important' ISK8NYC

I've noticed that sometimes they think it's the safe area - for people who are just learning to skate and have stopped hanging on the wall.

Never mind that there are people doing camel spins - surely as they are figure skaters they can get out of the way of those who are just learning to skate. Because in the middle you don't get run over by hockey guys.

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Revised Official 2010 Goals checklist
Skate __
New boots __
(lowering the bar for 2010 as I haven't skated in a year)

Personally, I hate the cones! They get in my way when I do MITF and the kids don't stay out of the middle anyway. But I mostly go to sessions which don't have enough people to warrant cones.

Yup! I've chased out many a parent holding up their tot, and loads of older kids who can barely stand.

Same here when I'm practicing. The guard at the rink where I have my lessons always puts cones on the red dots! Sometimes my coach and I move them a bit so I can skate a pattern on the line, and the guy puts them back within minutes! Of course, he never says a word to the kids zooming through the center .

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Okay, WAAAAAY back (okay, not THAT WAAAAAY back!!!) when I was working my butt off trying to pass my Bronze Moves test and I was fortunate enough to skate at the weekday public session which starts around the lunch hour, I remembered being QUITE peeved that they had to set up cones for the public session b/c I keep running over those #$*&(@# cones, especially on the back crossover moves!!! Also, the session wasn't crowded at all and there were that many kids on the ice (if any!!!) I didn't get why during that time why they would put the cones out. So in that case, HELL YEAH, I hated those cones!!!

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Cheers,
jazzpants

11-04-2006: Shredded "Pre-Bronze FS for Life" Club Membership card!!!
Silver Moves is the next "Mission Impossible"
(Dare I try for Championship Adult Gold someday???)

Thank you for the support, you guys!!!

just be prepared for the onslaught of skaters as Christmas parties and holiday breaks mean they'll be hitting the rink in droves. I LOVE it when open skaters randomly show up on freestyle ice in their ankle-breaking new CCM Christmas presents to try their "axels" and act as human cones to trip over.

I'm not bitter, I used to be one of those.

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Champagne in 2005, 2008, 2009 - who's next out of the pre-bronze club...?

Wang chung!

Me too. (Used to be one of those too...was thankful that I also have the "shelter" of the small patch of empty ice during skating school to practice too.)

You know... I was expecting this year to see a LOT of kids during the Christmas session at my hom rink. It was no more than usual, which is why I'm surprised. Perhaps the fact that this year we have 3 different outdoor holiday rinks sorta helped too!?!?! (Yes, THOSE rinks are crowded!!! My gym on the weekends is near one of those rinks. The other two are in Union Square right across Macy's and at the San Francisco ZOO of all strange places. I guess they're hoping that their ice rink is gonna become another "zoo", huh? )

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Cheers,
jazzpants

11-04-2006: Shredded "Pre-Bronze FS for Life" Club Membership card!!!
Silver Moves is the next "Mission Impossible"
(Dare I try for Championship Adult Gold someday???)

Thank you for the support, you guys!!!

cones? what cones?

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Level one Field Moves......PASSED 05.06.08
Level one Free dance.....PASSED 02.10.08

GOALS FOR 2009

• Level One Compulsary dances.......PASSED 19.02.09
• Level One Elements.....................PASSED 10.07.09
• Level Two Free dance.................PASSED 19.02.09
• Level One Free...........................
• Level Two compulsory dances.......

Loving it, Loving it, Loving it!!!!!

I think they have no idea what the cones are for... they have no idea what anything is for, they are just trying to hold themselves up on a 4mm blade.

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Is Portland the only city with it's own ice-dance website? http://www.pdxicedance.net/

Check, no skating trips for my troop. I'm not sitting out and watching everyone else have fun!

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It's all about the dress!

Can we blame them? I've never seen a picture in any rink that shows the 'jump and spin' area, with instructions "Advanced Skaters, Skating Lessons Only."
If the rinks don't advertise the rules how are casual rec skaters supposed to know?

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Great forum quotes:
On Falling: '...it doesn't matter, it's what you do AFTER you fall that's more important' ISK8NYC

My rink had all 18 rules posted in fine print . They now actually have a large sign on the glass at one end, with about 7 or 8 of the rules, but I have to go read it again. Don't remember exactly which ones they thought were important enough to blow up like that.

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In the "old days," rinks (esp. public facilities) had rules like figure skating in the middle, no backwards skating, no chains/whips/tag, no sitting on the wall, stay out of the boxes, and so on. I remember the big rules boards. Our rink has some of them on a board waaaay at the zamboni end, about 15 feet above the ice, lol.

Without ice rink guards, nothing's enforced anymore so it doesn't matter.

I think every rink should "cone off" one end of the rink for beginners. They're usually on the wall anyway.
Of course, that attracts the slalom kings of hockey...but it would keep all of them OUT OF THE MIDDLE.

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Well, that is the core of our rules, but, as you said, it takes guards to enforce the rules. We now have one absolutely excellent guard, but she doesn't work 24/7.

I'm used to the chaos, even though I still complain, but some of my poor students really suffer from it. On Sunday afternoon, I was working with a 6 yr old boy who was brought to tears out of sheer anger and frustration when he tried to stop to avoid hitting a "darter across the center" and fell awkwardly instead. He assured me he wasn't hurt, just mad. Those foam barriers sound wonderful!

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