Hi, everyone--

I have a question related to the clean ice thread. If I'm ever in a situation where I know there will not be an ice cut after the session, and I do something that makes a huge divot in the ice, is it proper etiquette to patch it? I think I read somewhere on this board or another that if one makes huge holes in the ice, they should be patched up--but is this something that is commonly done? And how would I do this? Does it get filled in with water and/or "snow"?

I sometimes patch divots, not mine, but of my senior competitive friend who toepicks down to the cement. Usually the divots are in a well travelled area and they just make me nervous. I get laughed at. I remind them that I build and maintain a backyard rink every winter so it's no big deal.

It's simple. Make some snow with your blade. Dribble a bit of your water bottle on it. Pat into hole. And, if you're really picky about it, polish the top of the patch with a hockey puck to smooth it out. (That Canadian thing again, there's hockey pucks everywhere).

A good resurfacer driver will lift the blade and drop wet slush over the lutz area and then go over it again. Patching holes is good etiquette in my book, it keeps the rink guy happy.

Depends on the rink. Most training centers with serious/elite skaters don't make you do that because there will be a TON of holes and when are the skaters supposed to fill them all in? That'd be ridiculous. You pay for ice, you get to use it. They can fill it in....I mean they know what skaters use freestyle ice for. That's why it costs 10-20 dollars, and not 4 like public ice. That's my opinion anyway, if a rink made me fill in my own holes I'd go elsewhere because I have better things to do with my time than fill 50 holes an hour.

It depends how bad the holes are. You can't always help digging holes, but some skaters do make the most enormous ones, and us poor dancers end up falling down them..... if you do have time to make running repairs, it's really appreciated!

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Mrs Redboots
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Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

If we see a really bad spot or make a deep or wide hole, we get an orange cone and mark it and then the person doing the ice cut (when they get around to it) can tend to the problem. There are usually cones sitting around near the penalty boxes. Maybe your rink has them? Just an idea. Greg

What I find almost as dangerous (at times) as the toe pick holes are the wide slightly deep curve shaped blade gouges from the hockey. I guess from where the players were cutting a sharp curve and deeply riding the end of the blade, so that it essentially carves a canyon into the ice. Those take several re-surfacings to fill, at least the way they make ice at my rink.

i was a slusher at a competition i was helping out at... and we put lots of water in a bucket of snow so its slushy..and filled the holes...then the zamboni guy came out and fludded the ice after so it had a lil coating over it

What's odd is that while people make pretty big holes at my rink (me included, at times) they don't fill the holes, they just resurface, and usually the ice is FINE afterwards. This is not the case with every rink I've skated at, but with the one I'm at currently it seems like the ice magically fills itself. But thinking about this, gosh, it must be a REAL pain in the butt to fill those holes. I never thought about that before, that's a crappy job. Now I know why zamboni guys are always cranky.

hockey players dont do as much dammage as we do LOL .... i have lotes of big holes at my club.. cuz we have alot of senior competitiors..

I think the problem with large holes and not filling them is that they take longer to freeze solid. Using snow or slush speeds up the process, making it safer for the next batch of skaters. There's usually a bucket of snow at our rink, and everyone takes 2-3 minutes at the end of the session and does a quick fill in. Makes it much nicer for the next users.

I agree that hockey ruts are usually the worst... you can always tell when there's been power skating or hockey in the morning before a session, ugh.

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I don't typically fill in holes. But I have filled them in when they are scary looking, like down to the cement, or if I've tripped over them. This happens a lot in the early fall on rinks that were melted for the summer and don't have much ice yet. Our zamboni drivers don't fill in holes so if we don't want to trip over them later, it's up to us.

Usually I just scrape up some snow with my blade and pat it into the hole. That's enough to prevent a serious problem from occurring. What I wish is that they'd cut the fourth rink in our facility instead of just wiping it. My rink recently held regionals and the three rinks in use for the competition were cut so the ice is nice and smooth, but the fourth rink is just terrible with ruts and bumps and simply wiping doesn't seem to do anything at all.

yeah, i agree!