Willow Ridge’s Winter 2024 Rink Update

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Many in our community might not remember when our outdoor rinks were managed by five or six hearty souls, using a snow blower, shovels, and lots of manual labour, toiling in late night obscurity, battling cold weather, equipment breakdowns, and doing repairs in our tiny, dark and freezing garage.

Times have certainly changed, but the work still remains. Our core “Ice Crew” of 17 volunteers got a good start this winter, with our first official skating day on November 24. Our rinks survived the December warm spell, and we hope to be flooding seven nights a week until spring. Our local volunteers are also working hard on the Adopt-a-Rinks out in our community. If you want to know where they are, go for a walk!

Our Ice crews are always looking for more help. It takes many hours to get our rinks up and running, and most of our volunteers also have busy family lives, volunteering as coaches, referees, or other team helpers during winter. Without more volunteers, other winter community-based outdoor projects like our popular curling and crokicurl rinks will simply not get built.

Our outdoor ice is used constantly, from early morning to late at night. We have Saturday learn to skate lessons, and on any given day you will see hundreds of skaters enjoying the efforts that a handful of volunteers continue to put in.

We run through about $50 of propane weekly, and our repair and maintenance budget each winter season runs into thousands of dollars as equipment maintenance and repair is constant.

If you enjoyed the rinks in the past and plan to do so again this winter, and want to be part of a feel good WRCA story, what can you do? At least one, hopefully two, and maybe three of the following:

1. Buy a WRCA membership.

2. Volunteer to help. The commitment is small (around two hours, one night per week) and the reward is immense. If you would like to help on a one-off project like crokicurl or curling, we need you!

3. Sign up to buy some rink board advertising! Spaces are limited!

4. Consider making a donation to help cover our annual operating costs.

Don Boykiw

Ice Rink Lead

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