Utica has announced that the public ice skating rink at the edge of the Val Bialas Ski Center at Roscoe Conkling Park on Utica’s Memorial Parkway will open for its second winter season, as part of its first full year (the facility is transitioned to pickle ball courts during warm weather) on Friday, Nov. 28.
“When the rink opened, it was was everything from community use to youth employment,” said Utica Mayor Michael Galime. “It was a place people could walk to, a place for people to gather.”
Regular hours for public skating at the rink are:
Cost of admission for open skate is $5. Skate rental for all regular sessions is available for $5.
‘Skate with Santa’
The skating rink will open on Dec. 23 for a special holiday event, “Skate with Santa,” from noon to 4 p.m.. then 6 to 9 p.m.
Cost for public skate admission and skate rental will be the same as regular sessions.
The city, in a statement, promise it will be “a special event filled with holiday cheer and photo opportunities with Santa himself.”
History of public ice-skating at Roscoe Conkling Park
The winter recreation center, owned by Utica and later named for its renowned son, 3-time Olympic Speed Skater (1924, 1938, 1932) Val Bialas, opened over 70 years ago in 1954. That center is remembered for including an ice-skating rink.
“Baby boomers who grew up here fondly recall winters past when the ski and sledding hills and skating rink were packed with people nights and weekends most all winter long,” the mayor said.
Under Mark Ford’s reimagining in 2010 of Utica’s once beloved winter wonderland, the community enjoyed snowboarding, sledding, tubing, ice skating, and 7 miles of cross-country ski trails. But the activities were “weather-permitting” and the gradual drop in average snowfall and rise in average winter temps over those years resulted in operating only His iteration of the winter recreation at the park concluded in 2017.
Returning winter recreation to the city began as a vision of former Mayer Robert M. Palmieri who devoted funding granted to the city via the American Rescue Plan Act” to building a new outdoor public ice skating rink facility, that would do dual duty, serving as pickle ball courts in warm weather.
Palmieri presided over the soft opening of the new rink in the winter of 2023 before leaving office. Mayor Michael Galime announced the grand opening of the facility at the foot of the still dormant Bialas Ski Center for the winter season in December of 2024.
Concluded Galime regarding the new outdoor ice rink, and the launching of its second winter and first full season, “it’s just a really nice community amenity where people feel at home.”
This article originally appeared on Observer-Dispatch: Outdoor Ice skating rink in Utica to open Nov. 28
Reporting by Cara Dolan Berry, Utica Observer Dispatch / Observer-Dispatch
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