I just got back from skating at the Petit National Ice Center in Wisconsin. Great facility. It has, by far, the biggest area of any ice skating rink building I've ever seen. The speed skating oval circling the two rinks is pretty cool, but unfortuneately it isn't operating during the summer. The temperature was relatively warm, too, which is a nice change of pace from the freezer I'm used to skating in. Oh, and I managed to do a really nice axel and then fall on my *** on the landing in front of all my nieces and nephews. I'm sure they loved it.

Where are some of your favorite places to skate when you're "on the road"?

Dude, that's where I skate & teach. You need to tell people when you're coming to town.....

My favorite rink though is Highland Park in the north Chicago suburbs. Warm rink & great soft ice!

I skated at Petit once! Synchro (Precision back then) mids were there in 1994. Midwest novice champs, baby!

It was actually really cool, having to go on the speed skating oval before/after your skate to get to where they had the entrance for the rink to compete. And they held awards on the speed skating ovals. One huge awards ceremony at the end, every team regardless of placement participated (that was when they still gave "thank you for coming" medals to teams that were lower than 3rd). At the end, we did one HUGE circle with everyone squished in and skated...it made the Guiness book of world records for most skaters skating together at one time or something like that.

Usually when I'm on the road, it's for skating I don't travel for work and if I go on vacation, I normally don't skate at all. In college, I loved skating at Yost Arena at U of M whenever I visited friends there. We'd always hit up open skate (and I competed there once in college). LOVE the ice. It's so fast.

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2010-2011 goals:
Pass Junior MIF test
Don't break anything

I am actually from Milwaukee and skate at the Petit when I visit my mom over Christmas! I enjoy the Petit a lot. Didn't skate there much as a kid because it was relatively new (the Wisconsin FSC had a rink in the Trade Building on the Fairgrounds, if I remember correctly, the "hardware" is still there). It was pretty cool however to see Bonnie Blair and Dan Janson skating on the oval. I belonged to the other club in town, the Greater Milwaukee FSC based out of Wilson Park and Eble Park arenas.

I haven't been able to do much traveling skating...I usually travel for work (conferences) and am too busy to make it to a session that isn't EARLY in the morning and if I travel for pleasure it's usually for a reason (i.e. I am currently in Michigan helping a friend get her new house ready and seeing her girls )

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Skating Dreams

"All your life you are told the things you cannot do. All your life they will say you're not good enough or strong enough or talented enough; they will say you're the wrong height or the wrong weight or the wrong type to play this or be this or achieve this. THEY WILL TELL YOU NO, a thousand times no, until all the no's become meaningless. All your life they will tell you no, quite firmly and very quickly. AND YOU WILL TELL THEM YES." --Nike

I go whenever ISI Adult Champs is held there. I design a whole "vaykay" around it. I pick a hotel on the strip and rent a car to get to and from the rink. I also get tix to shows and (hopefully) win money at Blackjack and Video Poker!

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This space has been put on hiatus for retuning....

I noticed there was an Indian casino nearby. Do they have all the Vegas style games? I also noticed that it's legal to BUY fireworks in certain areas, but illegal to USE them. Makes perfect sense I think Wisconsin supplies kids in the Chicago suburbs. I thought it would be amusing to go through airport security with bottle rockets and firecrackers sticking out of all my pockets.

Isn't the ISI world champs going to be in the SF area sometime this summer?

Sorry, I should have thought of that Part of the fun of hitting the road is meeting fellow skating interneters.

There are two criteria for my favorite rinks. One is location and view, the other is the facility itself. I'd rank the Petit high on the facility scale. Another one of my favorite buildings is the Snoopy rink in Santa Rosa. It's very unique and fun to skate in. In terms of view, my favorite is the outdoor rink at Squaw Valley. You skate on top of a mountain while looking down on Lake Tahoe. The training facility at Lake Arrowhead is one of the few that has a great view and a great facility. It's the only figure skater only rink I know of. There are no boards, a big mirror covering an entire wall at one end of the rink, and it's surrounded by big windows looking outside over a forest. It feels like you're actually skating IN a forest.

Kevin

(Totally OT) No, Wisconsin supplies ALL of nothern IL with fireworks! I can remember many, many times going across the border with my mom (12 miles away) to the fireworks shop just two steps over the IL/WI border. There was a shop on the IL side of the border, but they couldn't sell to IL residents, lol!!

Anyway, my favorite rink to travel to (other than Lake Placid, which is special for its own reasons) is World Arena. The ice is great, and the atmosphere of the whole place rocks. It's nice to skate with so many high level skaters to really motivate you. I skate with some seniors, but you get so used to seeing the same people, it's nice to go into an intense training facility that's still a lot of fun. Plus, Colorado Springs was a great place to visit!

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"Without a struggle, there can be no progress" ~ Frederick Douglass

ISI Worlds are at San Jose (about an hour south of SF) July 27-August 1.