LORD OF THE RINKS
FROM DECEMBER 2020 ISSUE OF WEST END PHOENIX
It wouldn’t take much to make Toronto the outdoor skating capital of Canada. Here’s Ian Merringer’s take on where to start
It turns out you don't mess with Toronto’s ice supply. It took barely a week this fall for 1,000 West Enders to ink up a petition asking for the Dufferin Grove Park skating and shinny rinks to be kept open this winter, delaying demolition until spring. Parks Department honchos had held fast to their timeline for months, but finally relented and ordered staff to fire up the Zamboni.
It makes you wonder, what else might city functionaries be convinced to do to help Toronto cement its status as the greatest skating city in the world?
A breakwall skate trail along the lake
Ottawa’s frozen Rideau Canal attracts 20,000 skaters on an average winter day (and really, isn’t every day average in Ottawa?). The canal is eight kilometres long, and while Toronto can’t currently match that, we do have a semi-protected stretch of Lake Ontario that’s more than half that length, just waiting to be put to better use.
The western beaches breakwall runs from the Humber River to Ontario Place. It sits just offshore where it steadfastly breaks up waves and calms currents. Just like in Ottawa, where government staff thicken, smooth and monitor the ice, Toronto could be home to a linear skating trail on natural ice where skaters could really stretch out. Imagine benches clustered around food trucks, serving proper food, not just Beaver Tails. With the lake on one side and Toronto’s skyline on the other, parking lots and transit connections, Toronto’s own Breakwall Skate Trail would be a way to make the Great Lake even greater.
Ice-free park rinks
Did you know Auston Matthews learned to play hockey on synthetic ice? These polyethylene surfaces are getting closer and closer to approximating the glide and grab of frozen water. Sheets of different sizes could be dropped down into parks all across the city, making outdoor skating a year-round possibility. The biggest adjustment would be needing a cooler for your beers post-shinny.
A rail trail
The West Toronto Railpath is a victim of its own success. Though it’s currently being extended from Dundas Street down to Sudbury Street, the pathway has so increased property values along its flanks that developers are loath to give up any space for, say, a grassy lane that could be a maintained as a skating trail in winter.
But there’s another rail line in the West End. The Barrie line runs north/south west of Lansdowne Ave. and is not as busy as the Georgetown line. South of St. Clair the adjacent corridor of fallow greenspace widens where a hydro line runs parallel to the tracks down to a hydro substation at Davenport. There is enough unused space underneath the aerial lines, between the railway tracks and the houses to the west to accommodate a meandering, 800-metre-long, out-and-back skating trail.
Just north of Bloor Street, a linear skating trail could run along the narrow corridor of unused space on the west side of the railroad tracks. It would link Erwin Krickhahn Park to the existing skating rink at Campbell Park. The rubber-matted pedestrian bridge that would be required at Wallace Avenue might just be the catalyst that launches a second, all-season rail trail that leads to...Barrie.
An artificial rink for Wallace Emerson
The loss of the Wallace Emerson shinny rink to the redevelopment of Galleria Mall stings like an elbow to the head for shinny players. The development plans include a skating trail with an oval, with no boards, that can be used for shinny on a temporary basis. Is that enough for the existing dedicated shinny corps, to say nothing of the new residents of the 3,000 units being built? The project calls for the existing park to grow in size, so let’s make good use of it. When the concrete slabs are being poured for the planned BMX park, the Parks department should make sure it lays refrigeration piping down so it can be a reliable artificial shinny rink in the winter when the modular boards go up. Wallace Emerson can and should still have proper puck play at the foot of all those new towers.
Pond hockey!
Shinny was meant to be played on ponds. Fortunately, Toronto has the perfect place. Grenadier Pond in High Park has a long history of hosting West Enders battling over a puck or gliding across its smooth expanse. The city paid more than $100,000 per year from 2017 to 2019 for a firm to monitor the ice and deem it safe or unsafe for skating. Much of that money ended up at insurance companies, where fun is always the first deductible. It was a line item that didn’t survive the March 2019 budget, but it’s coming back this year, as a nod to the cancellation of indoor activities, but will it remain when life returns to normal and the coronavirus bill comes due?
Just like at Dow’s Lake in Ottawa, the city can improve prospects here by flooding the ice on cold nights to thicken it. The work required is minimal. Mother Nature takes care of the hard part; city staff with an auger and pump could take care of the rest. Like the process of building up layers of ice, the city could establish a history of safe skating, which would bring insurance costs down. It might take a few years, after which Toronto would have the best pond hockey venue in the world.