You have people with STICKS on your public sessions? Whoa, I've never seen anyone go that far here...I'd be terrified if anyone was doing that...

No, pucks. Looks like a can of black shoepolish, that kind of thing.
I'm terrified of those as well, I'm always afraid I'll land/step on one as they kick it between mine - and everybody else's - feet. I'd rather they have sticks than pucks.

We have the smell too. On the evening sessions the hockey players have practice after we get off, and you have to hold your breath walking past them!

I think it's the inconsiderate skaters, rather than specifically hockey ones, which really gets me. I skate on patch and on public sessions, and I've seen incidents from both hockey and figure skaters that were accidents waiting to happen. I think some of it comes from immaturity and ignorance more than anything, I guess as you get older you get a sense of mortality!

I wish the age thing were true. I had a lesson the other week where I was trying to practice jumps. The freestyle was slightly busier than normal and these dippy old adults came to skate just where I was jumping in lesson. For some strange reason this didn't freak me out like it normally would and I carried on. I've never tried threading a needle with a flip jump before, but somehow managed it. Scared the hell out of the adults and my coach, but she knew I was getting a bit frustrated with them all. She'd already asked the kids to move away from where she was teaching when these adults decided to move into the same spot. They moved off pretty sharpish when they realised that I wasn't going to move and neither was the coach.
I'm not sure if there behaviour was ignorance or immaturity but they're definitely accidents waiting to happen and sometimes I wonder if it's all to do with the loutish behaviour of the young lads skating or whether it's to do with dippy people doing random unexpected things. Is it just like driving in that regard?