MORE ON ICE – A new ice skating rink at Sunnyside Park is offering Atlantic residents new winter entertainment. When Seth Staashelm, director of Atlantic Parks and Recreation, first started working with past-director Roger Herring, they talked about how in the past the Sunnyside basketball courts were flooded to make a rink.

Staashelm explained that the courts were originally designed for an ice skating rink. “Right in the middle of it, there’s a drain for the court and the concrete has reinforced steel in it,” said Staashelm.

“We never had strong interests from the community and all of a sudden, the Chamber hosted an ice rink over by the Rock Depot downtown,” Staashelm said. People from the community that went to this wanted a more permanent ice rink for the winter season.

“We then looked into how we could make this a possibility,” Staashelm said. He went to the Community Promotion Commission (CPC) and requested funding for the liner, then worked with citizens and people that have experience with ice in Atlantic.

“We cleared off the whole creek pathway to make sure there weren’t sticks, leaves, and that everything was out of the way,” Staashelm said in explaining how the ice rink was made. The liner for the rink weighed close to seven hundred pounds. “We used a tractor to put the liner on the court and then we rolled it out ourselves,” said Staashelm.

The crew then put sandbags down to hold the liner in place. Atlantic Municipal Utilities helped with the process of making the ice rink. “We had them help open up the fire extinguisher for us. We filled the area and it was just a waiting game after that,” said Staashelm. Building the ice rink happened in stages, and each of those stages took around three to four hours.

Attending the ice skating rink could be an activity to do during your free time. Other benefits from ice skating could be things that you might not have thought of. According to Health Fitness Revolution, there are ten main health benefits of ice skating. A few of those are stress relief, building of leg muscles, endurance, and mental fitness. Therefore, not only is ice skating be entertaining but good for your personal health.

To use this ice rink, you don’t have to be wearing ice skates. “There are a lot of ice sports that are played without skates,” Staashelm said. The Olympics curling is one of those sports.

If you wanted to use ice skates now, you would have to purchase them for yourself. “At this time, you’re going to have to have your own skates,” Staashelm continued. “We are looking into the future with the possibility of buying skates to rent but this year we weren’t sure if it would be cold enough to even have the ice skating rink.”

“We’re making skating aids for kids and stuff like that,” Staashelm explained. When new skaters come on the ice, they are typically given a device to support them while learning to ice skate. “It’s just made of PVC pipes, like a walker that will slide on the ice,” he said.

Staashelm cautioned against leaving children unattended. “We always recommend kids being supervised on playgrounds, so it’s the same for this too,” Staashelm said.

When the warm weather returns, the ice will melt away and make puddles.  All that has to be done is letting the water drain out and putting away the liner– which will then be brought out again in the next winter season.