Ottawa Park Ice Rink opens for the season
The rink is one of a kind in Northwest Ohio.
TOLEDO, Ohio — It has been a tradition for Toledoans since 1969. And now, this year, the Ottawa Park Ice Rink has opened a month early!
“The Ottawa Park Ice Rink, here in Ottawa Park, is just such a jewel for our city. There aren’t many open-air ice rinks in the state of Ohio — and this is certainly the only one in this region,” said Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz, (D) Toledo.
Kapszukiewicz says that this year, a new partnership with Sylvania Tam-O-Shanter will allow for new programming to take place at the rink, like lessons, figure skating, and even broom-ball. The city still owns the facility, but it’ll now be operated by Tam-O-Shanter.
“We think it’ll be used about 4x more than it was last year under this new partnership. The City of Toledo’s good at a lot of things, but operating an ice rink maybe isn’t part of our core competency. Luckily, there’s an organization in town that does do it well,” Kapszukiewicz explained.
Kapszukiewicz emphasizes that the rink will still be open to the public, and that sometimes it’s better to take a seat to the professionals. For additional information on the rink’s hours and programming, you can visit toledo.oh.gov/ice-rink.
“It’s another amenity that can make Toledo the place that folks want to live and play,” Kapszukiewicz added.
Also during today’s event, the winners of the city’s inaugural snow plow naming contest were announced.
The winners were “Plowy McPlowFace”, “Sleet Happens”, “Plowa Bunga”, “The Big Leplowski”, “Betty White-Out”, and last but not least, “CTRL Salt Delete.”
