I’m a bad Canadian. I can’t skate — it’s more like three haphazard steps, then hitting my face on ice.
Skating rinks, community or otherwise, never meant much to me, but like most Canadians, I grew up with kids seemingly born with their sticks on the ice.
It’s a big commitment for Edmonton community leagues to set up their rinks, and in some cases, it is their largest yearly expenditure. Most seem to think it’s worth it, but others just can’t manage.
When winter first hit Edmonton, I wrote a story on rinks in small and old neighbourhoods struggling to operate from lack of funds, volunteers or youth.
It was interesting to see a kind of pattern: new suburban leagues can get flashy rinks while areas of the city that get glossed over for young families and development fold theirs.
It’s almost like an impromptu map of Edmonton’s boom-bust cycle — where the different generations of Edmontonians lived as the city’s economy ebbed and flowed, which areas got attention and for how long.
Read the original story here.
