With only eight outdoor rinks open out of 143 in Montreal, and 34 out of 172 in Quebec, skaters must be patient, because the weather does not offer the conditions for watering the ice.
Marie-Pier Come with her two children, Julian and August. They came to skate at the Confederation Park ice rink, in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce district, in Montreal. One of the few places where you can skate at this capricious start to winter.
M.R.S.
“The holiday season was difficult for people who like to practice winter sports, but, at least, we can come here to skate,” confides to Newspaper high school teacher Marie-Pier Viens, before taking to the ice at Confédération Park in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighborhood with her children August, 4, and Julian, 9, to Montreal.
This outdoor rink with a cooling mechanism under the ice surface, like in an arena – you run the resurfacer over it – is one of the rare places in the city where free skating is allowed outside.
“It’s quiet today, but at Christmas there were crazy people; people even came from Laval to skate and play hockey,” says supervisor Michael Cioccia.
The capricious weather at the start of the year did not allow the production of natural ice in the approximately 200 rinks in the Montreal region. In the City of Montreal, 135 neighborhood skating rinks are closed.
The St-Isidore municipal skating rink without snow to illustrate articles on snowless winters in greater Montreal on Tuesday, January 2, 2024. PHOTO MARTIN CHEVALIER
Photo Martin Chevalier
A little better in Quebec
The situation is less disastrous in Quebec, where 78% of ice rinks are closed as of January 4. The refrigerated surface of Place D’Youville was the only outdoor skating rink in Quebec between Christmas and New Year’s Day, with the Plains of Abraham ice ring. Since then, 33 ice creams have been opened to the public.
“The situation is not ideal, because we need three successive days of cold temperatures around -15 degrees and a layer of snow of 10 cm to make good ice,” explains Karine Desbiens, on behalf of the Quebec city.
Calls are being heard to increase the number of artificial ice, less dependent on the weather, and Quebec announced a few years ago its intention to provide such infrastructure in each of its districts.
An ice rink from the Bleu Blanc Bouge program is also planned for 2025 in the city of the Nordiques.
No opening date
As for knowing when the outdoor natural ice rinks will open, no one wants to come forward due to the unpredictable weather at the start of the year.
If we except the six Bleu Blanc Bouge rinks like this one, built as part of a partnership program between Montreal and the Montreal Canadiens Foundation, there are only three places in Montreal where you can skate outside : the beaver lake in Mount Royal Park, the Old Port of Montreal and the Tranquille esplanade on Place des Festivals. Skaters flocked there in droves yesterday as the Newspaper.
“The City of Montreal closely monitors weather conditions and, as soon as the cold and weather permit, maintenance teams are hard at work to provide service to citizens,” explains public relations officer Kim Nantais, which highlights that free skating remains possible in the city’s 34 arenas.