If you are familar with my previous thread about a public liability issue with a rink in Melbourne then you may have some knowledge about this particular rink. Otherwise I will do my best to explain ......

Last night we had the Victorian Skating Championships (Australia). The event started over one and half hours late. It was meant to start at 4.30pm but started after 6pm. This was because the rink had a public session which finished at 4pm and the ice was very wet (it was quite a nice day in Melbourne - about 25C - but surely the ice should not have been as wet as it was). The had to zamboni it about 3 or 4 times and it still ended up with lumps of ice over it. I know if it had been held at our rink we would not have had this problem, but then this rink is notorious for having bad ice and it melting even on mild days.

Anyway competitiors obviously arrived at the times they should have but it must have been very distracting when they arrived and had to skate much later than what they had prepared themselves for. They also only had the cafeteria open for what they originally planned, not longer so everyone was getting quite hungry and annoyed.

On the whole it was unprofessional and I am sure contributed to a lower standard of performance from the skaters than what they would have liked.

Also this rink has a really bad name in Melbourne for the way it treats skaters apart from their own and unfortunately for our skaters, apart from the competition organised practise sessions, were only allowed to skate on the ice for one hour on the Tuesday before this competition. They were not allowed to go at any other times (except for a crowded public session) and so there were a number of skaters wanting to run through programs before the weekend who had only one opportunity to get used to the ice and getting their bearings of the other rink.

Basically for a national level competition this was just totally unprofessional.

Has anyone else had these types of problems?

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OT, I chatted to essence of soy yesterday, he said you weren't going. Do you have results? Ours is next weekend, I wonder if Miriam with debut her new programs??

Did you all complain about the lack of profressionalism? Since it's a state comp, can you complain to VISA (ISV?) or ISA? I'd imagine it would be terribly distracting for competitors and frustrating for all. All our comps seem to run very smoothly.

Hi Anital

I actually hadn't planned on going but a friend rang me up at the last minute and asked if I was interested so I got a ride with him. Otherwise I would not have gone.

As for results, I am not sure. I did not stay for the presentations. I know that Tyler Mow is Junior Men Champion but he was the only competitor in that section but he definately made standard. I think Miranda Bourn won Junior Ladies over Cherry Lau.

Anita - from my last post about Ringwood and the way they treated skaters from our rink during the insurance problems at Oakleigh, this was not unexpected. In fact ISV received a number of complaints about Ringwood and the poor ice conditions before their last meeting. It will be interesting to see the washup at the next meeting post competition. However I really think ISV should not pay Ringwood for the ice hire on the Sunday night, seeing the rink was totally at fault for the event running two hours behind time. And I was even thinking of ringing the rink themselves to complain about the cafe being closed early.

I think I might send an letter to ISV just to express my disgust at the way the rink rang things.

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I can't believe that was a national level competition. Small, one-day local competitions are run much better than that here in the Northeast U.S. I would definately suggest people write to your national figure skating organization so this rink is not chosen again as a host, or at least until they upgrade their facilities.

This was a state level competition, not a national one. It was the Victorian State Champions, from which Ice Skating Victoria will select competitors for Nationals. Even so, it is very disappointing to hear that this rink hasn't improved on previous problems, and has actually added to them.