Skating for the Rest of Us
by gotsparkly on Feb 4, 2010 1:34 PM EST
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PrintOkay, so not all of us play hockey yet. While it's kinda fun to watch the Rats play pickup, not all of us have the equipment and/or skills to join in. Some of us would like to acquire equipment/skills to do so, and that means getting out on the ice and skating. A few of us were mentioning interest in a plain old skate.
I know that Kettler has open and public skates for this purpose, and maybe getting together some afternoon for a public skate would be fine, but the problem to my mind with public skates is that the presence of large quantities of small children, most of whom are either skating faster than their skill level can control, are skating fast and weaving in and out, or are struggling along, make any sort of speed drills or backwards drills difficult to impossible to pull off. If we can get enough people, I'd like to see about buying an ice time slot of our own for us to just mess around with.
Who's interested?
UPDATE: I added a poll - please answer if you're interested so I can get some idea of a headcount and maybe price this thing out.
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They do have an adult only skate on Wednesday evenings 7:45-8:45. Never gone to that before. The best time I had there though was when I went on Tuesday for the 11AM skate. Maybe ten people on the ice total. It was awesome.
The biggest problem for this for me is that I live in Maryland, closer to Baltimore than to D.C., and going to Kettler on a weeknight is difficult, if I have to work the next day.
I need a snappy signature...
Yes, I know. But there’s no way I would be down to go if we do a public skate on a weekend. It’s just TOO ridiculous there. I’m sure the weekday evenings are just as bad… I’d rather pay less and go to my local rink where I can actually move.
Which leads me to my other problem… if we even are able to rent the ice I’m sure the cost would probably be the same as what the pick up guys are paying and I just don’t have $25 to dish out if only ~20 people go. I’m sure I’m not the only one that shares this sentiment either.
Most likely, although we don’t need to rent as long as a timeslot as what the guys use either. This is why I want to get an idea of how many are interested so that I can get an idea of what the price will be.
No Alex, no ratings. Know Alex, know ratings.
I realize this is a little bit of an old thread, but thought I’d throw my experiences out there. If you can’t make it during the day due to work (my problem), Wed nights are probably the best. The group there is mostly moving at a steady speed, and you get a few of the adult leaguers coming out for some extra practice – though they usually move a little quicker, weaving in and out a bit. There’s usually like, 30-50 or so people out (guessing a bit here), but it’s better than weekends, when it seems like every kid in the area is out there with their parents.
If you’re looking to practice your skills a little, you can usually work in the area behind where the net would be. Most of the time there’s 2-4 people in that area on each end of the ice, usually doing hockey stops, and occasionally there’s a figure skater back there.
Biggest problem with weekends (alluded to earlier) is the variability of skill levels. There’s a few kids who weave in and out, but you’ll get groups of 15-25 people all in one area moving at a walking pace. There also appears to be times when someone (or sometimes 2-3) people will fall down in the middle of the lane, and everyone seems to move around.
The way I think of it is Wed nights are like driving on a sunday on I-95 towards DC. Occasional hiccups, but mostly moves, and most people seem to know the rules of the road. Weekend afternoons usually seem like one of those youtube videos of people driving around in India.
Oh hell yes, I’d absolutely be in.
The adult skate at Kettler is, to my recollection, pretty packed.
by Beaupre for Mercy on Feb 4, 2010 1:59 PM EST reply actions
What about street hockey? Would love to do regular street hockey pickups.
(There’s a couple leagues in the DC area, but they’re either very serious or way out in Fairfax – would be looking to do it in DC or close-in NoVA.)
Anyone else interested?
Can you link street hockey in Fairfax? I’m interested.
by capitalpunishment on Feb 4, 2010 3:45 PM EST up reply actions
So do you think it would be cool to bring a stick and puck to pass around, regardless i am totally on board for skating :)
Hagerstown Maryland it 150$ per hour
At the Hagerstown Ice Complex in Maryland it is 150$ per hour to rent the ice.
That is realllllllly far for me. :X I don’t think I could do that.
Other DC-centric options that I’ve never been to: Fort Dupont, at least 3 outdoor rinks such as the Sculpture Garden, but I’d have to look the other two up since I forgot what they were called. If the weather doesn’t suck like this weekend, an outdoor skate could be fun.
What I’ll do is price out a bunch of options and see where folks want to go. I’ll look for about an hour of ice time, preferably a weekend evening since that seems to work well for folks. Reisterstown Sprotsplex has good ice, but that drive will kill our Virginia folks. There’s also Laurel, Columbia, Bowie, Wells in College Park, etc.
No Alex, no ratings. Know Alex, know ratings.
Bit off-topic, but I just read the thread this post stemmed from and wanted to plug the “women’s rise and shoot” (or whatever it’s called) at Kettler on Monday mornings. It’s a learn-to-play class of drills and a scrimmage at the end. It’s a lot of fun and we have about 10-15 players for any given session but were just told we need 20 for the rink to break even, so here is my shameless plug! And I had zero experience when I started, unless you count using my brother’s street stick to shoot tennis balls at him standing in a doorway.
P.S. Waking up to play hockey is infinitely easier than waking up for anything else
"He's the heartbeat of our team"
I would if I felt I could skate well enough. I saw it before, but I really need to skate more often and joining a class (with the costs of buying the equipment) isn’t in my budget right now either. :( I’d love to though.
I would abslutely kill to be able to do this, but I live in Baltimore and have to be at work at 7:30 AM.
No Alex, no ratings. Know Alex, know ratings.
Argh, that is far, but looks like you have a lot of rinks near you, I bet there’s something similar.
And forgot to say I voted yes in the poll, particularly if it’s close to the inner suburbs.
"He's the heartbeat of our team"
HolyJumpin is a girl?!
My ability to post is only surpassed by my ability to pinch pennies.
by jordanDC on Feb 5, 2010 8:25 AM EST up reply actions 1 recs
Interesting… how early is “morning”?
"I broke my face," he said. "Ran into Brendan Shanahan. You can Google it."
6:30 AM. But really, it’s painful only until you get to the rink. And no traffic!
"He's the heartbeat of our team"
My practices in college were at 7 a.m., so this isn’t much worse. Do you play in the Monday night women’s league?
"I broke my face," he said. "Ran into Brendan Shanahan. You can Google it."
No, that’s my goal. I’m planning to sign up for the next season, whenever that starts. Are you in it? If yes, I have a boatload of questions :)
"He's the heartbeat of our team"
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