Summer Ice Times

[isakswings]

I can't help but be frustrated by the change in the freestyle schedule for the summer. I don't know if this is standard everywhere, but our freestyle ice sessions are all in the morning now. There are not ANY afternoon freestyle sessions until school starts in August. This frustrates me because I work graveyards and well, I tend to function better when I have slept a bit before I start attending activities. LOL. Considering the freestyle sessions end by 11:30 am, if I ever want to witness any of dd's practices, I will have no choice but to stay awake all morning. Not to mention, I get the special headache of trying to enlist in other parents to help us get our daughter to the rink so she can have a lesson. Her coach will take her on public ice and since publice ice is typically very light during the summer months, she has been able to do almost as much as she can on freestyle sessions. BUT publice ice doesn't do us much good when it comes to being able to play her program music. *sigh* It's understandable why we can't do that on public ice, but it is also frustrating. I understand the need for other activities but WHY can't they schedule at least 1 or 2 evening sessions?? *sigh* I am certain I am not the only person who is frustrated by this. This happens on school breaks too... it's rather annoying! LOL. Like I said, I understand the need to open up times for other activities, but I also don't understand why they can't fit in one evening session a week. Thankfully, this isn't a problem all year long or dd wouldn't be able to skate.

[slusher]

The same here, all the ice once the kids are out of school is daytime ice and if you work, or are a working parent, it doesn't work :x

I'm peeved about something else, there's a rink that will do ticket ice in the afternoons, and a coach from another club has had all of her parents reserve the times. They're only allowed to reserve an hour, but five parents = five hours blocked off. You can only skate on that ice if you take from that coach. We don't. So, we're shut out of the afternoon ice too. Unless that is, I want to book it as a full rental 8O which would bump them off and I'm almost inclined to do that :twisted: Why a rink decided to have something such as Private Ticket Ice is beyond me. The other coaches are furious, there's a nice rink war happening about it.

[Kat12]

I don't get it either. I would think daytime ice sessions would be as frustrating for kids as for adults. I mean, we have a hard time getting in around our work schedules, and while kids might get off school earlier and have summers off and such, I would guess that for the majority of them, their parents work too and can't take them to morning or early afternoon sessions.

I know a lot of the time skating is geared toward kids anyway, so it makes sense there are more daytime FS sessions, until you remember that most of these kids are too young to come to the rink by themselves (except, I suppose, for those old enough to be there by themselves AND who can walk or take the bus or something to the rink).

But there must be more non-working parents out there than I think, right...if not they wouldn't hold daytime sessions, right?

[CoachPA]

The rink I coach at has summer ice time that runs from 6 a.m. and 3:50 p.m. Monday-Friday beginning in mid-June and ending the last week in August.

In the winter/spring (September-early June), however, we have ice typically from 6-9 a.m. and 2:30-5:30 p.m. (although some evenings go as late as 5:50 p.m.) Monday-Friday. We also have Sunday ice from 3-4:50 p.m. (September-March) and Saturdays 11:00-11:50 a.m. (September-June). These are all freestyle sessions.

Trust me, it's not just skaters who can get frustrated with summer ice times. As a coach, it can be frustrating trying to schedule for the summer because while there is more hours of ice time available during the week, I have to be cautious of what skaters I book on certain sessions since some are specifically for MIF/dance (15 min. session), freestyle/pairs (50 or 60 min. session). I can't always do back-to-back lessons, especially if there's that 15 min. MIF/dance session in between a freestyle/pairs session since most all my students take a 30 min. lesson, which means that I may have to take a 15 min. break in between lessons in order to have my skaters' lessons correspond with the ice time and their ice packages that they previously purchased at the start of summer.

[isakswings]

But there must be more non-working parents out there than I think, right...if not they wouldn't hold daytime sessions, right?

It's odd, because most of the parents I know, work! At our rink, I think a lot of the kids carpool. That's exactly what dd will have to do this summer too. It's odd, I can't remember what we did last summer. I know we rode with dd's friend's mom a lot but dd had just started competing in June last year so we did not sign up for any more competitions until September. This time, she is competing in July and August. So we need freestyle ice for her to practice her programs! Sure, they can have Stick and Puck sessions at different times of the day, but not Freestyle??? UGH! Just ONE late afternoon session a week would help me out... Oh well.

[isakswings]

The rink I coach at has summer ice time that runs from 6 a.m. and 3:50 p.m. Monday-Friday beginning in mid-June and ending the last week in August.

In the winter/spring (September-early June), however, we have ice typically from 6-9 a.m. and 2:30-5:30 p.m. (although some evenings go as late as 5:50 p.m.) Monday-Friday. We also have Sunday ice from 3-4:50 p.m. (September-March) and Saturdays 11:00-11:50 a.m. (September-June). These are all freestyle sessions.

Trust me, it's not just skaters who can get frustrated with summer ice times. As a coach, it can be frustrating trying to schedule for the summer because while there is more hours of ice time available during the week, I have to be cautious of what skaters I book on certain sessions since some are specifically for MIF/dance (15 min. session), freestyle/pairs (50 or 60 min. session). I can't always do back-to-back lessons, especially if there's that 15 min. MIF/dance session in between a freestyle/pairs session since most all my students take a 30 min. lesson, which means that I may have to take a 15 min. break in between lessons in order to have my skaters' lessons correspond with the ice time and their ice packages that they previously purchased at the start of summer.


I WISH we had some late afternoon times. I know a lot of it is because of hockey camps and curling and other hockey stuff going on there, in addition to the fact that our rink is the home rink for the local university team and likely some HS teams. I have no idea when the university and HS teams practice during the summer months, but I would imagine all of those things would definately factor in to when they schedule freestyle sessions. Still, it is frustrating to say the least.

We rarely have Saturday sessions from Aug-June let alone during the summer months. I would like that tho. There are rinks within 35-40 mins that have both Sat and Sun freestyle sessions, but seeing as our rink is 5 minutes from my house, I don't like to go that far if I can avoid it. I don't think dd's coach can teach a lesson at those rinks anyway since she is not a member there. :(

I bet it is frustrating for coaches and students/parents alike. I know dd's coach wanted a set schedule this summer and I can't do that... not when I have to depend on someone else to get us there. KWIM?

[isakswings]

The same here, all the ice once the kids are out of school is daytime ice and if you work, or are a working parent, it doesn't work :x

I'm peeved about something else, there's a rink that will do ticket ice in the afternoons, and a coach from another club has had all of her parents reserve the times. They're only allowed to reserve an hour, but five parents = five hours blocked off. You can only skate on that ice if you take from that coach. We don't. So, we're shut out of the afternoon ice too. Unless that is, I want to book it as a full rental 8O which would bump them off and I'm almost inclined to do that :twisted: Why a rink decided to have something such as Private Ticket Ice is beyond me. The other coaches are furious, there's a nice rink war happening about it.

That would be so frustrating!! UGH. I would be upset too. That's certainly not nice of the coach to "hog" all the time for her students. So, can only ONE person buy ice time for the one hour?? That seems silly! I hope they get it worked out.

Summer hours frustrate me... I am certain I am not the only one who has this problem. Oh well. I just needed to vent.

[Kat12]

I imagine it must be tough for coaches and clubs to try to schedule around hockey crap too...which I'm sure has more priority for the rinks. *eye roll*

[PinkLaces]

Our rink has summer ice 8:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. Monday through Thursday. There are random Friday morning sessions starting in July. There are 1 hour evening sessions Monday and Wednesdays. Most of the coaches don't want to teach on the evening sessions though. I am lucky to have talked our coach into coming in on Monday nights to give DD & I lessons. I have also been lucky that I can work from home so I can carpool. Someone else drops off in the a.m. and I pick up at lunch time.

Where we skate there are 8 rinks, but in July, we are getting bumped Thursday mornings for hockey. So my DD's 8:00 a.m. session is 3:15 in July. They were nice enough to give us coupons for those sessions.