Ice Skaters Will Have 2 New Outlets in County : Rinks: A facility is set to open in Anaheim at the end of the month, and another is scheduled to debut in January in Huntington Beach.
Temperatures may not dip much below 55, but it’s likely to be icy in Orange County this winter.
For the past several years, Costa Mesa’s Ice Capades Chalet has been the only ice-skating rink in town. Now, two multi-rink facilities are slated to open by early next year, quadrupling the number of local frozen ovals.
Glacial Garden Ice Arena, with two ice-skating rinks, is scheduled to start up in Anaheim late this month. And Side by Side Rinks, with an ice and a roller rink, plans a Jan. 15 debut in Huntington Beach. The ventures represent a total investment of about $6 million and will put about 40 full- and part-time employees to work.
The back-to-back openings are mere coincidence, officials at the three arenas say. They cite a burgeoning interest in ice sports and say they aren’t worried about competition.
“Figure skating and ice hockey are showing such tremendous growth among young people that there’s a need†for more outlets in the county, said Errol Foremaster, president and part owner of Glacial Garden.
Even those who now have a lock on the market seem downright grateful.
“Other rinks would be a blessing in this area,†said Fred Nelson, Ice Capades’ assistant manager.
Ice Capades, which has only one rink, stays open until 4 a.m. on weekends, has only about two hours of “dead time†during the week and has to turn away some customers who want to rent ice time, officials say. They attribute ice sports’ popularity surge to the recent Winter Olympics, the addition of three teams to the National Hockey League and puck-meister Wayne Gretzky’s 1988 transfer to the Los Angeles Kings.
Over time, several ice rinks have come and gone in Orange County. Within the past several years, arenas in Anaheim and Brea closed, leaving Ice Capades the sole survivor.
Both new facilities plan to operate every day, offer ice hockey and figure skating lessons and open public sessions, sponsor tournaments and leagues, and have an apparel and equipment shop and a snack bar. Both will operate in renovated warehouses.
Both also are backed by ice hockey enthusiasts who plan to employ about 15 instructors plus five other employees at each site, and both are installing rinks of similar size--about 75 feet wide by 180 feet long.
Foremaster of Anaheim’s Glacial Garden says that his arena, however, will have a more serious focus on hockey and figure skating. For starters, he said, it has two, not just one, ice rinks. By contrast, he said, the Huntington Beach facility is devoting a lot of space to non-ice-skating activities such as party facilities and a video arcade.
His location will also prove to be a plus, Foremaster said. Costing $4.5 million, the facility is about half a mile from the new Anaheim Arena, which is hoping that an NHL team will move in by its scheduled May opening.
“That team has to practice somewhere†when the sports arena is booked with other events, Foremaster said.
Leonard Silverberg, a partner in Side by Side Rinks, touts its wide variety of offerings, including a video arcade, a “kiddie land†where tots can play while parents skate, a “major party room†to rent for birthdays and other occasions, and roller hockey lessons, adult basketball and volleyball leagues.
Silverberg maintains that Side by Side, costing about $1.6 million, will not give short shrift to ice hockey and skating. The NHL’s Chicago Blackhawks have already said that they will practice at the rink when visiting Southern California--and staying at a hotel in Newport Beach--to play the Kings, and negotiations for training clinics with Kings members are underway, he said.
“We’d like to make ice hockey a top sport in the Southern California, at least Orange County, area,†said Silverberg, a Los Angeles podiatrist.
However it shakes out, local skating buffs are doing double axels over the pending openings.
Nancy Leaning of Huntington Beach is an ice dancer who skates with a partner. Ice dancers like to skate only with other ice dancers who know not to dash in and out of their set trajectories, she said.
But officials at the Costa Mesa rink and another one she tried in Paramount recently gave time slots that they had set aside for ice dancers to hockey players who typically pay more to use the rinks, forcing Leaning and others to face public-session pandemonium.
“We desperately need ice in Orange County,†she said.
