Skaters take to the ice at new Great Park rink
The new ice rink at Irvine’s Orange County Great Park was crowded on Wednesday, Jan. 2, with bundled-up kids holding the hand of a parent, laughing teens too cool to wear jackets, and junior hockey players zipping in and out among the slower, less experienced skaters.
Great Park Ice, when finished, will host figure skating, youth tournaments and Anaheim Ducks practices along with the public skating sessions.
Sessions on Wednesday that drew nearly 1,000 people by the afternoon were the community’s first chance to look inside the vast glass-fronted building that still smells of fresh paint and new carpet. It will eventually have four ice sheets, a restaurant and a pro shop and Anaheim Ducks team store.
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The $104 million facility is part of the Anaheim Ducks RINKS network and will offer regular public skating hours along with competitions and events for spectators.
“It’s beautiful, but it’s packed,” Corona mom Debby Gasteiger said as she headed back to the car with her two hockey-playing sons.
She said she liked the rink’s central location and expects to be back next month when her boys play in a tournament.
Outside the 280,000-square-foot building, an earth mover beeped as it backed up and workers in hard hats swept dirt with a push-broom in an unfinished front area.
Inside, as kids sat lacing their skates and then hobbled awkwardly toward the ice, Anaheim resident Heidi Strickler stood watching her son and daughter circle the rink.
They’d been so eager to skate, Strickler said, her son got impatient when the GPS misdirected them on the way there.
“Anything to do with ice, my kids don’t care if it’s crowded,” she said.
Strickler said she liked the ample seating along one side of the rink and looks forward to seeing the rest of the facility completed, which is expected this spring.
Information on events, public skate times and admission costs is available at greatparkice.com.