Dear constant reader, as you know from previous posts, Bowie Ice Arena shuts down each spring during the months of May and June for maintenance and general cleaning. This is a good thing from the standpoint of having good ice during the ten month season when the rink is up and running but less good for me getting ice time in late spring. So for the past few weeks I've been skating at Piney Orchard and when I was at the beach, the Flyers' Skate Zone in Atlantic City. Last Sunday dawned with rain (for the umpteenth day in a row) and with Piney's ice tied up with hockey all weekend (the Skipjacks) it was time to look a bit further afield. My choices were Wheaton, Colombia, or Cabin John. All three rinks require a bit of a drive, with the Cabin John rink the furthest from my house at roughly 30 miles each way. I've skated at Wheaton which has excellent ice and has an ice dance subculture but Cabin John is also known locally for ice dance, and so it being a dull day I decided to do a bit driving and see something new.
Like the rink at Wheaton, Maryland, Cabin John is owned and operated by the Montgomery County Parks and Recreation Department.
I kept my iPod shuffle and ear buds in my pocket. So much for having ice dance music.
My initial impression of the rink was that it was clean and seemed to be well run. The facility has two sheets of ice, one is Olympic sized and the other in NHL sized. When I first arrived there was a game in progress on the NHL sheet and a Free Style session on the Olympic sheet. I saw lots of kids who were obviously advanced skaters head off to interior parts of the building with gym bags and since none of those kids appeared on the ice I assume the rink has off-ice training rooms as well. The ice was reasonable and was resurfaced half way through the session. The session in question was billed as a "family public" and so it was heaving with kids. While there were a few adults in the mix it looked more to me like "Sunday afternoon baby sitting" might be a better billing! It seemed like every time I set up to string some progressives or swing rolls together a kid would show up in my path, usually skating against the grain. But, ice time is ice time--even if it is a bit unproductive. I'll be back at Piney for a lesson this afternoon and who knows where I'll turn up over the three day Memorial holiday?
Summer Doldrums are better than Summer Tantrums but only just. Since my home rink closed for it's customary two month maintenance routine I've gone from skating four to six times a week to maybe twice a week if I'm lucky, when the alternate rink's (Piney Orchard) schedule and mine align. One of those times includes an ice dance lesson so I'm guaranteed to get on the ice at least once a week.
Once a week is barely enough to hold my place let alone advance my skills so coach and I are attempting to refine small aspects of my skating. Over the past several lessons we've been working on improving knee bend and free leg extension. Remembering to point the free toe. Remembering to bring the feet together before the next push. Remembering that the two beat step of the Rhythm Blues lilt sequence should be executed while heading towards the boards rather than along side the boards. Working on flattening and stretching out the RB's inside swing rolls in order to get down the ice for a full pattern. Lots of stuff to think about and maybe even remember!
Last week she decided to tidy up my notoriously sloppy forward inside Mohawks. I tend to bring my free skate to the heel of the skating boot rather than to the instep of the skating boot. She had me glide on an inside edge while bringing the free skate to the instep but without placing the blade on the ice. I do have enough hip turn out to do this. I just don't like it. We worked on this in both directions until I decided it didn't feel odd. At that point she told me to remember (that word again) to bend both knees before placing the free skate on the ice. It actually worked! Of course the time I tried it in my weak direction it didn't work at all, but subsequent attempts in the CCW direction did show improvement.
So, there it is folks. The Summer Doldrums won't quite go away even after my home ice kicks back in after the 4th of July holiday. Bowie, like most rinks, holds an endless parade of summer camps for kiddies. The normal schedule doesn't take its rightful place until September. Even so, based on last year's schedule I should be able to skate more than once or twice a week. One thing I will miss about going to Piney is a little BBQ shack just up the road from the rink called Expressway Pit Beef. Maybe it's just as well that Piney's schedule limits my access!
Today the temps in Maryland hit 60 degrees in many locations. It was too nice a day to go to a crowded indoor public session, so diaristdaughter and I decided to head to a nearby outdoor rink in Annapolis at the Quiet Waters Park. I reverted to my old skates since I have a dance lesson on Tuesday night and wouldn't have a chance to have my blades sharpened if the grit on the ice was bad enough to dull the edges.
We arrived at 2:30 in the afternoon. Quiet Waters is a very pleasant county park, popular with walkers and cyclists. The rink wasn't as crowded as I thought it would be. We paid our fees and laced up our skates. Diaristwoman and her mother went for a walk.
As is normal with outdoor rinks, there were a lot of compression ridges in the ice as well as standing water in places. It took me about a half hour to get comfortable with the feel of my old skates.
You can see the standing water in the center of the rink. The far end was also a tad on the swampy side. You didn't want to fall!
The ice was very slow. I tried a couple of spins and quickly gave up. The mushy ice just wouldn't permit the blade to spin. I limited myself to forward stroking and swing rolls with a few Mohawks and 3-turns just to keep things interesting. After an hour and a half my legs were beat. Mother-in-Law suggested dinner at a nearby Chinese restaurant. It didn't take much arm twisting. I'd like to try this rink again when conditions are more favorable. I plan to have the blades on my old skates moved to match the location of the blades on my new boots so that I can transition between new and old skates with minimum foot reeducation. That way the old skates will be perfect for outdoor adventures.
Diaristfamily spent the last two weeks at the beach near Atlantic City, New Jersey. We were visited by the niece from Georgia who rekindled my interest in skating some three or so years ago. With that in mind, I brought my skates along so we could slip over to the Atlantic City division of the Flyers Skate Zone.
It was a beautiful beach day. I hoped the public session would be empty and it was.
First off, unlike many of the other rinks which I patronize, the Skate Zone doesn't cut any slack in terms of fees for either youth or geezers. You wanna skate? That'll be $8 bucks and $3 bucks if you need skates. Freestyle sessions are $12 bucks/hour. Second point: this rink, like Piney Orchard in Maryland, tends to dim the interior lighting to barely adequate. This is a pet peeve of mine. I like to see my tracings on the ice. Having said that, saving energy in a facility that gobbles electricity is understandable. After all, this is summer and my hopes for an empty rink were realized. The day niece and I skated there were the two of us, a single speed skater and three boyz on hockey skates. Yep, six skaters. The boyz soon engaged in a high speed game of tag but were not a bother. The speed skater was very predictable. However he was given to makingodd grunting noises at irregular intervals which gave the sensation of attending a tennis match at Wimbledon--that is if Wimbledon tennis was played inside a dimly lighted cave.
The rental skates rubbed little Miss enough that she decided to go to the beach on the second opportunity a few days later. On that occasion there were more skaters but still a nice low density with a couple of coaches and private students, another adult figure skater, a hand full of boyz and my friend on speed skates. All the folks I interacted with were very friendly and after just two visits I think I could easily integrate into the local figure skate crowd. Nice to have a home away from home.
The AC Flyers Skate Zone is located at 501 North Albany Ave, Atlantic City. If you vacation at one of the south Jersey beach resorts and decide to bring your skates along keep in mind that like many rinks, this one does shut down for annual maintenance. This rink's down time occurs during the last three weeks of July.
The rink is within sight of the casinos if that's your thing.
Across the parking lot one sees the "Sand Castle" Stadium. This, like the ice rink was built on what once was Bader Field, a small air strip. The Sand Castle once hosted minor league baseball but closed a few years ago. Last summer the facilities were spruced up for a Dave Matthews concert.
Around here ice passes come in two flavors: your basic stick-on rectangle or a wrist band. Bowie issues the different colored stick-on passes while Piney and Wheaton prefer the wrist band thingies. I like the stickers because I can't get the wrist band type around my wrist when I have my wrist guards on. Otherwise the band is hidden and the ice monitor must either take my word for it that I've paid or I have to remove the wrist guard to show the pass. Are there other types of ice passes? What does your rink issue?
I skated at Wheaton again this past Saturday and made two interesting observations: 1. the ice monitor was on figure blades rather than the ubiquitous hockey blades and 2. when conditions permitted she wiled away the time practicing swing rolls and double 3s. When was the last time you saw an ice monitor do either?! Of course I should mention that Wheaton Ice Arena is one of three rinks which the Wheaton Ice Skating Academy uses for training. The other two are Cabin John and Rockville. More about WISA can be found here.
Wheaton Ice Arena is located just off of Arcola Ave. in Wheaton, Maryland. Like an endangered Polar bear one sees in a public television nature program devoted to global warming, your diarist has been forced to desperately scan the horizon for an ever dwindling source of new ice in order to survive. First Bowie Ice Arena shut down for annual maintenance and then Piney Orchard also closed in order to resurface their rink. This week I'm taking Horace Greeley's advice and find myself "going west". Wheaton is a bit of a hike around the beltway from Bowie but isn't too far from my lab at Beltsville. Yes, the Ice Garden at Laurel, Maryland is closer but their public session schedule doesn't jive well with my work schedule, so over to Wheaton I went. I took off from the lab at 3:30 this afternoon which allowed plenty of time to arrive for the 4:30 to 6 pm public session. I inquired as to whether or not they had a geezer rate and was rewarded by saving a buck ($5.50 vs $6.50). While I was lacing up a kid in hockey skates jumped out on the ice before the Zamboni operator had closed the end rink doors which is a major no-no on every rink I've ever skated. He was promptly chastised for his breach of etiquette. After we were finally allowed to step out on the ice I saw the ice monitor setting up cones on the four red dots which surround the center circle. Since this is something not done at my home ice I asked her about the significance and she said they put the cones out to create a space where traffic doesn't cross into so that folks can practice their edges, spins, etc. without fear of an ice tourist invading the space at an inopportune time. How civilized! When I revealed that I was a displaced skater wandering from rink to rink while my home ice was being refurbished, she indicated that this rink will also close for a few weeks in late June or early July. When that happens most of the Wheaton skaters will migrate to the rink at Cabin John. For me the exodus will probably extend to the rink at Rockville. My wanderings will finally end on the 6th of July when Bowie reopens. The Wheaton rink is part of a large county sports complex that features a park with soccer and base ball fields. Along with the above indoor rink. this complex also has an outdoor rink which functions during winter. Wheaton Ice Arena is the home of a well known ice dance school. My impression of the rink is that the facility is very nice, well lighted and has the sensation of good management and maintenance that one comes to expect from a county or city run rink. Although I skated a late afternoon public session that featured on-going LTS lessons, (which put about a third of the ice off limits), it was never crowded. My main problem was that I hadn't skated in roughly a week and it took me most of the hour and a half just to claw my way back to where I was when I last skated at Piney last Friday. But when one only skates once a week instead of four or five times, skills do erode. I commiserated with a girl who, like myself, was trying to get her half-flip jump under control. After the public session ended I headed home. The next session was a level-2 free-style session. Both too advanced and too spendy for your thrifty diarist. I'll probably return to Wheaton a few more times before moving on to Rockville. If you skate at Wheaton and see a white haired geezer come over and say "hi"--I won't bite!
Piney Orchard Ice Arena, Odenton, Maryland; the new "not" home of displaced Bowie skaters.
We've been
skating here since the end of last month but last night was the last
public session before Piney also shuts down to redo their sheet. They
reopen the Tuesday after Memorial Day, but my schedule doesn't jive with
theirs until the first week of June. This is particularly annoying
since my funky LFO3 is finally just starting to click in a reliable way,
and in turn, I'm getting a little better at executing the half-flip
jump which depends on that turn. We'll see if my progress has stuck or
evaporated by the time I get to skate again. Piney generally doesn't
shut down, but last year's hurricane knocked the electricity off long
enough for the ice to melt. When the juice came back on and the ice
refroze on it's own all the hockey lines, logos, face off circles etc.
were blurry and faded. There's been enough complaining that rink
management decided to shut the place down and repaint the sheet and
bring up new ice. This should be a major improvement for Piney, which
in my opinion needs a bit of a spruce up. Now if we could just get them
to leave more of the lights on during publics...
My apologies to T. S. Eliot. April may breed lilacs out the dead land, mixing memory and desire, but in May the City of Bowie melts the ice for two months just as many skaters are right on the cusp of passing the next ISI level! Two months of struggling to find higher priced ice time close enough to get to after work. Two months of struggling to keep from going backwards skill-wise.
I'm just back from the last public session of the skating "year". The usual crowd was there plus a coach with two very good women hockey players going through drills. I'd not seen this trio before but they were a welcome addition. I've got no beef with actual hockey players (they very seldom show up at publics and as a rule are VERY good skaters). The coach was a tall, shaven dome man with hawk-like eyes. The women went through their drills like greased lightening. Later I overheard one of the rink staffers ask how they did this year and the young ladies indicated that since their team finished number one they reckoned they'd done OK...
But enough about them--what about me? I savored my last swing rolls and waltz jumps and will no doubt be grumpy later in the week as withdrawal settles in. My choices in order of length of drive distance from Bowie are:
Piney is the obvious choice. They have a public on Friday evenings (hopefully not a DJ/disco ball affair) and a Sunday afternoon public which diaristdaughter and I can make. Trouble is that Piney is a dark hole with so-so ice. Yes, I'll skate there but don't be surprised to see a "new" geezer show up on your ice if you skate at Wheaton, Columbia or Waldorf. Tis the season for Bowegian skaters to become wandering ice tourists--sigh....
I was down in the St. Petersburg, Florida area two weekends ago for a boat race. As was the case last year I took my skates along for the ride. Last year I got up early and dropped in on an early morning free style session. This year before going south I searched the arena's web site in vain for that same FS session. It was missing in action. I did note a couple of public sessions, one of which was scheduled from 8:30 to 10:00 pm on Friday.
Now maybe last year I wasn't fully awake but this year the arena seemed a little down on it's heels. The interior walls badly needed a fresh coat of paint and perhaps that's in the works. Outside I noticed that the signage was little different and the exterior of the building was undergoing a major revamping. One had to enter the arena via a side door which took one into the rink proper rather than the lobby. Since I'd been there before I remembered how to get from the rink to the lobby in order to buy my ice pass. That was a good thing because signs directing patrons to the lobby were small and easy to miss.
Once out on the ice most of the above didn't matter. Ice is ice. The typical Friday nite date crowd that can be found at any ice arena was out in force. Basically there were the hockey kids whizzing around, a coach and several mid-level free stylers practicing in the center circle, teenagers skating in groups and/or stopping in the middle of traffic without any rhyme or reason.
I got in a bit of useful practice which was a good thing in as much as I was missing both a lesson and a power stroking session back home. The other thing I noticed was that the rink seemed smaller than I remembered from last year--I really must have been asleep on my skates then!
Will I pack my skates when I return next year? Probably. The construction will probably be completed by then and hopefully the arena won't seem so drab. I wonder if this rink has changed hands or perhaps management since last year. Can any reader comment on this?
One positive difference between this year and the previous one was that upon my return to home ice I didn't break any bones! The more I skate other venues, the more I come to value my home rink.
Your diarist played ice tourist back on the Sunday after St. Valentine's Day. We were at the Jersey shore and my home ice at Bowie was off limits due to a hockey tournament. As is the case of most busy Sunday afternoon publics, this session was fully loaded with the usual cast of players: hockey boyz skating fast, against the grain of traffic, and well beyond their skill levels; parents carrying (!) small children while attempting to skate with their running mates careening about unsteadily taking pix with a cell phone; teens alternating between skating arm in arm, 6 abreast or standing 6 abreast stopped in traffic; peeps insistent on cutting through the center circle just as you are winding up for a jump; and finally, other teens pretending to be ice monitors with about the same disdain that Claude Rains musters in Casablanca . Diaristdaughter and I took that all in stride and got in two hours of mostly forward skating without killing anyone. For me the part I disliked the most was that after the mites hockey game, which preceded the public session, the rink management shut down two of the three banks of lighting, leaving just the center string on. This created odd shadows and dark areas through out the rink. Kinda reminded me of pond skating at dusk but without the rustic charm. But beggars can't be choosers and even at $8.00 (roughly double the price of a similar public at home) it was better than not skating at all. Why so costly you might ask? Basically because they can get away with it. Since the Skate Zone opened back in 2000, several older nearby rinks in Ventnor City, Vineland, etc. have closed leaving the Skate Zone as the only game in town. No doubt they have frequent skater options and quieter mid-week public sessions that would reduce both the cost and the roar of the crowd but one wonders if they turn off even more lights when the skating population is just a handful. Perhaps I'll answer that question this summer when I'm on vacation back in this area. My next bit of ice tourism takes place towards the end of this month when I go down to St. Pete, Florida for a boat race. My motel is only a few blocks from Clearwater Ice Arena and although they've done away with the 6am free style session that I dropped in on last year, they do have a Friday night public session that agrees with my timetable. How can I resist?
There was a young skater named Hannah Who slipped and fell on her fannah As she lay on her side More stars she espied Than there are on the Star Spangled Bannah.
The above doggerel is apropos of nothing--just had to get it out of my system...
Today's Power Stroking session was an instructive one for your old Diarist. The first 10 minutes leaves one gasping for air but somehow life goes on. I learned today that once I grasped the basic pattern of the drills that I wasn't the slowest skater on the ice--at least during the forward skating portion of the programme--I actually passed some of the youngsters, much to their chagrin. The back skating drills were better than last time but there's still much room for improvement. But unlike the afore mentioned Hannah, I didn't land on my fannah and in fact lived to fight another day...
At the end of the session Madam Director handed out entry forms for a Holiday Contest--the "Ugly Holday Sweater Day". The skater that is deemed to have the ugliest holiday sweater will win a "great" prize. This takes place on the 22nd of December (which just happens to be my BD). Diaristwoman swears she doesn't have an appropriate sweater for this contest but I'll bet she knows peeps that do--I told her I don't want merely ugly. I want truly hideous--extra points if the sweater has flashing mini lites. I mean, it's my BD--I gotta win this!
Although St. Lucia Day is actually on the 13th, the first half of the month of December is given over to St. Lucia here at Diarist HQ. For those not of Swedish decent more about St. Lucia and her day can be found here. Your diarist was pressed into service last Saturday to schlep an electronic keyboard, stand, bench, etc., etc. to/from the car and to do other important tasks such as standing guard over St. Lucia's and her attendant's shoes during the procession. This particular procession was actually a two part event. Part one took place at the Swedish Embassy (aka: House of Sweden) while part two took place a few steps away at the newly opened Washington Harbour Ice Rink. The ice rink is a fountain in the summer months and was having it's grand opening as an out door ice rink that day. The venue is in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington right by the Potomac River, just a stone's throw upstream from the Watergate Hotel and the Kennedy Center.
They claim this rink is larger than the open air rink at Rockefeller Center. I don't know about that but at least it doesn't have that corny statue of Prometheus. That's another one of those mysteries of figure skating--why did Rockefeller choose Prometheus as a symbol for an ice rink? An odd choice since Prometheus gave mankind the gift of fire not ice...
Being a beast of burden for this outing, not only did I not get to watch my wife's Swedish Song Group (Svenska Sånggruppen) perform the Lucia thing but I also missed seeing the Bowie ISI mini-synchro team do their thing down at the rink. So diarist-generated photos for this post are few. However photos of the day's action can be seen here. Those interested in viewing a typical St. Lucia procession can take a look at the one from last year at the Embassy (yes those are actual lighted candles on top of Lucia's head):
As for the ice rink, my take is that it's an OK venue for date nite but it was super crowded--at least last Saturday during the opening day. On a crowded weekend evening don't expect to do more than slow, forward perimeter skating while holding your honey's hand (assuming (s)he is steady on blades). Also, it's a bit spendy at $9.00 (plus $5.00 if you need to rent skates). However for your nine bucks you get a wrist band and once banded you can skate from opening time at 10 am until 10pm, assuming your legs can go that long. Oh, Geezer diarists, active military and little kids get two bucks off. Lessons are available (one of the coaches from Bowie moon-lights there). Perhaps after the novelty wears off the skater density will drop a bit. The rink is surrounded by a number of pleasant bars and bistros where skaters can go to warm up over a suitable beverage/snack. On a nice day or a not too chilly evening, the views of the Potomac while skating would be a plus. There is at least one parking garage within easy walking distance of the rink. For those not familiar with DC the address is 3000 K Street NW and the web site for more info is:
www.thewashingtonharbour.com/skating
Finally--a pix of a Zamboni legitimately using its headlamps!
