Ice Depth concern?

Curlygirly81 said:

Many years ago, I went to a rink which has a figure skating club, I went for figure shinny, apparently they weren't maintaining their ice and I hit concrete and chipped my toe pick. Didn't really affect my skating because it was minimal damage but since then I have worried about this... I read that most rinks only have a depth of 1.5 inches.[emoji15]
That's not much in my mind...
Anyone else hit concrete.. Is it a valid concern or am I just being paranoid lol

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Curlygirly81 said:

Many years ago, I went to a rink which has a figure skating club, I went for figure shinny, apparently they weren't maintaining their ice and I hit concrete and chipped my toe pick. Didn't really affect my skating because it was minimal damage but since then I have worried about this... I read that most rinks only have a depth of 1.5 inches.[emoji15]
That's not much in my mind...
Anyone else hit concrete.. Is it a valid concern or am I just being paranoid lol

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SmallAminal said:

I think in most reputable rinks, this should not be an issue. Even 1.5 inches would basically be impossible for you to cut through in skates.

Where I DO worry about this is when we do outdoor skating - I've run over concrete and metal in outdoor rinks the city sets up in the winter (some of them are fountains in warm weather, so low ice levels can mean you run over metal or concrete). Those rinks are not really maintained (or maintained minimally, so if the weather changes drastically, you have to watch to make sure the ice didn't melt and re-freeze in an uneven way. At one of them, the ice didn't go all the way out to the corner of the concrete pad, so you had to avoid that area.

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Ic3Rabbit said:

When skating in a new place and I have done so alot, I always make sure now to do some laps around and kind of eye up and examine the ice surface all the way around, so I don't try to pick in anywhere too shallow (if that makes sense). Yes, in the past I wasn't paying attention at a facility and picked in for a triple and it didn't turn out great because I hit concrete. I destroyed my blade, my knee and my wrist when I landed on the latter on the way down.hwell:
No you are not paranoid for thinking about this, but don't let it overtake your skating life. Just keep an eye out and check over the ice, if you think it's not safe then don't skate there. :agree:

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Ic3Rabbit said:

Yes, in the past I wasn't paying attention at a facility and picked in for a triple and it didn't turn out great because I hit concrete. I destroyed my blade, my knee and my wrist when I landed on the latter on the way down.hwell:
:

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Curlygirly81 said:

Good to know I'm not crazy lol, I always check but sometimes you just never know. I have even gone so far as asking about ice depth to the ice crew hahaha...they must think I'm so weird lol

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Edwin said:

A technical question: what refrigerant is used nowadays?

In professional cold storage facilities the refrigerants are usually toxic and sometimes flammable, which is undesirable in public skating facilities. Even many of the competition rinks you see on TV don't have a permanent ice floor, the floor is removed once the ice has thawed after the end of competition.

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cl2 said:

When I was skating at a seasonal rink, the management would ask us not to do any jumps for the first week or so that they've laid the ice, because the ice would be still fairly thin.

Another funny encounter is, one time my rink (a different one from above) was doing some maintenance assessment and had to bore several small cylindrical holes in the ice, about 1 inch in diameter, all the way down to the concrete. Yes, I was particularly careful to avoid picking or skating close to those holes.

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likevelvet said:

1.5in is super substantial. I've only ever had this worry at natural rinks, like frozen ponds or lakes. Never thought about it on manmade ice, but yikes. Scary. I can see how actually hitting concrete would make you paranoid forever.

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Nimyue said:

My main rink has an issue with ice depth. The ice can be really thin in places, we have floating paint, and my coach picked in and hit sand recently (She doesn't even really skate when coaching, just slowly showing how a jump should go etc. nothing full out). It's annoying.

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christy said:

We have a seasonal rink and the first few days after they put the ice back in it's really thin. If anyone tries even a low level pick jump they run the risk of hitting concrete. It usually takes a week before the ice feels "normal".

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RoaringMice said:

I always do a lap to check the condition of the ice, too. I'm looking for lumps, bumps, remaining carvings from earlier hockey, and holes from quads. I thought I was the only one who does this!

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