The beginners and parents "magnetic middle" fascinates me, so I've actually asked them "Why did you come out here?" I mean, it's work to trundle a tot across traffic to the center where there's no support.

Part of the "let's go the middle" is to just get away from the traffic going around the sides. One woman said it felt like she was "guarding" her daughter from the wild skaters and she's not a great skater herself.

When there are tons of skaters just hanging out on the boards, it gets tiring for a parent to steer their toddler around the obstacles. (Not to mention the language used by the Chatty Cathy's. No offense Cathy.)

The other reason is that the ice isn't as choppy, so they feel more secure in letting go of the child to try a few steps. Without anyone whizzing through and across the middle (yeah, right), they really did think it was a safety zone.

I pointed out that one of my size 10 blades whipping around in a scratch spin isn't really very safe, either. lol

*Soapbox Out*
If there were better general session rules enforced, hanging out on the wall (or anywhere on the ice) would be eliminated. Better behavior, ie. no snowing, racing, weaving through the crowd, would make skating a less intimidating experience for people. These are your future skaters, rink manager! You've cut down on the number of public sessions because of cost. As a result, you have bigger crowds that need more management. Otherwise, half the attendees won't come back because "it's too dangerous." Wonder why most of the rinks I've checked with have very low LTS registrations this year? Some of it is because of it being in between Olympic seasons, but I think a lot of it is lack of promotion and poor management.

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ITA. At the rink where I teach, the center circle is actually THE center circle, so I often point out the space between the circle and the nearest blue line, which is lightly travelled compared to the rest of the rink, and tell nervous parents they can use that space.

Poor management will lower those LTS classes every time. I once saw a school go from 100 in their first season down to 50 the next season for one simple reason. The Skating Director could not leave well enough alone and moved kids from class to class every week! There was mass confusion, with lists posted on the glass for parents to find their child's class, and crowds in front of the lists making that difficult. The SD didn't have a clue and poured money into advertising.

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Thanks Batikat. I will certainly consider this, particularly after we almost collided with a child in our dance lesson today (not a beginner - a child who has been skating some time, has private lessons, and was skating towards us at the time, but must have been temporarily blind... ).
That's interesting to know as well.

It's the same at our rink. In practice, what tends to happen is that people have their lessons on public sessions until they're about Skate-UK level 10, or working on their Passport, although people do go on patch before then - and, I imagine, have lessons on public ice when they are beyond that, depending on what suits.

I haven't skated on a public session for years, but the adult l-t-s classes held on Tuesday and Thursday evenings are on public ice - they cone off anything up to 2/3 the rink for the classes, as needed. The Saturday and Sunday morning classes are on dedicated ice.

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Mrs Redboots
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I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

By ISK8NYC -
I remember skating at South Mountain Arena in New Jersey, which had the toughest rules for publics at the time:
No spirals
No jumps
No camel or layback spins
No turns outside the middle
No backskating outside the middle

I also skated there until a few years ago when they implimented the policy of "Private lessons only in the middle of the rink - no Freestyle." So let's say you just took a group lesson that included learning a two or one-foot spin and wanted to practice those skills or a few forward 3-turns or forward Mohawks during the public. Tough-you had to do it (or them) in the Lutz corners; or no privates showed up during the public session or showed up during part of. That meant the middle was empty and you still couldn't practice...! I could see that rule for the above-mentioned list - but no one or two foot spins?? No joke doing a spin in the corners when people are zooming so close you could take them out.

I have only had lessons so far on public ice, but since I am doing the passport gold level, I am reaching the point where I will be doing my programme, which can only be performed on patch of course ... my only experience of patch at the moment is the club session (this is classified as patch) which is chaotic for a leftie such as myself ...

Same patch rules here - no coach, no patch (club sessions excluded)

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UK Passport (figure)
Bronze : PASSED 13-Oct-07 Woohoo
Silver: PASSED 08-Dec-07 Yippee
Gold: Backspin PASSED One Foot Spin ____ Toe Loop ____ Programme ____
The impossible is just a journey away ...

Why can't you do your programme on the public session? You said it is not so busy near lunchtime. If you are in lesson your coach can help to clear a path for you too. I did my programmes, both dance and free, on public session for years - admittedly not Saturday ones, but it can be done. Can be easier than a busy club or rink patch as often people will get out of your way or stop to watch if you look like you can do something.

I'm Canadian too ... and it varies from rink to rink. I've even had little kids with their sticks and pucks on Parent And Tot skates, slamming pucks into the boards, with the Parents playing goalie - !

I agree that it would probably be possible to do a programme on a quiet public session, except that the only music allowed is the rink music (I assume this is for licensing reasons). The quiet phase on the saturday lunchtime is a relative thing, compared to the hoards which are often at the rink up until about 1230.

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UK Passport (figure)
Bronze : PASSED 13-Oct-07 Woohoo
Silver: PASSED 08-Dec-07 Yippee
Gold: Backspin PASSED One Foot Spin ____ Toe Loop ____ Programme ____
The impossible is just a journey away ...

Does that mean they dont' even allow the coaches to play programme music during publics. That would make it difficult. We are lucky in that regards since coaches can play programme music during public sessions and when it is quiet (and if they know you are a regular) you can play programme music yourself as long as you put the 'rink' music back on afterwards.

Camel moths. . . a true ice rink phenomenon!

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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

At our public and figure free sessions, you cannot play music over the public system - that's only for club sessions, but you can put a portable player on the boards and play it and try to listen to it above the public session music.

They made this rule because we had outside coaches who were not playing nice when it came to music (wouldn't take turns or follow protocal) so the rink just said "no music"

j

LOL!!!!!

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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)

The only music during public sessions is the rink music, which is fed from a cabin at the top of the rink. It is piped music, which is distributed to all the rinks in the group.

Patch music is played from a separate location, which is locked up by the head coach at the end of patch sessions.

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UK Passport (figure)
Bronze : PASSED 13-Oct-07 Woohoo
Silver: PASSED 08-Dec-07 Yippee
Gold: Backspin PASSED One Foot Spin ____ Toe Loop ____ Programme ____
The impossible is just a journey away ...

Then we are luckier than I realised since the rink has two systems. The one the DJ's use for disco sessions and gets used during the panto etc and a rinkside one which plays the public session discs and which the coaches can use at any time. Just as well for me since I now have my dance lessons on public session again (but weekday morning so usually very quiet).

Jskater49: I guess we are also lucky that visiting coaches have always followed our rink's system for music very well. Also while our coaches are self-employed they tend to 'belong' to a certain rink much more than it appears many American/Canadian coaches do and therefore the rink has to allow them to play music or they don't make enough money to stay. They tend to have reciprocal arrangements with coaches at nearby rinks so they come if there is a problem with their ice or to practice before the rink's open comp.

Most UK rinks have only one ice pad so patch sessions are probably fewer than in US /Canada too.

I am very lucky. At the rink that I typically skate publics at anything goes. There are absolutely no rink guards in the morning, the ice is usually fairly empty, and the skaters/coaches just use the rink music system as we see fit. Regular freestyle rules apply as far as ice etiquette.

I don't skate on weekends so I don't know what happens on busy sessions.

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If I could meet ole Axel Paulsen, I would kick him in the teeth

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man, i cant get over how strict all your rinks are! i guess it's really that my rink is super lenient, but since that's all i know, it seems like you all go to strict rinks.

the figure skaters pretty much control the music during public session. we can do programs, but we also just bring cds to play. we pretty much always have our lessons on public. singles, doubles, triples, we do them all on public. for the most part, our public sessions are not very crowded and are really more like freestyles with random beginning skaters. but even the couple of times i've skated the most crowded session, saturday afternoon, a few people (including me) were doing axels and doubles. of course, we are very careful about watching where we are going. i guess we are just used to it, because there are pretty much never any collisions. man if i could only do freestyle sessions, i dont know what i'd do! i'd NEVER be able to afford it, and i would probably be more scared. at least in public sessions, you know where the beginner skaters are going. even if they do randomly change direction, you can still swerve to avoid them. i'm able to avoid the super-fast, reckless skaters pretty well. i guess, overall, i'm more comfortable on a public than a freestyle because it is easier to predict where people are going. also, collisions on freestyle sessions are so much worse--talk about high impact!

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