With only eight of 143 open in Montreal and 34 of 172 in Quebec, skaters will have to be patient as the weather does not provide suitable conditions for watering the ice.
Marie-Pier Come with her two children Julian and August. They came to skate at the Confederation Park rink in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce district of Montreal. One of the few places where you can ice skate during this moody start to winter. WOMAN.
“The holiday season has been difficult for people who like winter sports, but at least we can come here to skate,” high school teacher Marie-Pier Viens confided to the Journal before going jumping with her children on August 4 Julian, 9, on the ice at the Confédération Park rink in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighborhood of Montreal.
This outdoor rink, with a cooling mechanism under the ice, similar to an arena – you skate with the ice over it – is one of the rare places in the city where outdoor free skating is allowed.
“It's quiet today, but at Christmas there were crazy people; We even had people come from Laval to skate and play hockey,” said Supervisor Michael Cioccia.
The capricious weather at the beginning of the year did not allow the production of natural ice in the approximately 200 ice rinks in the Montreal region. In the city of Montreal, 135 neighborhood ice rinks are closed.
The St-Isidore municipal ice rink without snow to illustrate articles about snowless winters in the Greater Montreal area on Tuesday, January 2, 2024. PHOTO MARTIN CHEVALIER Photo Martin Chevalier
Slightly better in Quebec
The situation is less catastrophic in Quebec, where 78% of ice rinks have been closed since January 4th. The chilled surface of Place D'Youville was the only outdoor ice rink in Quebec between Christmas and New Year's with the Plains of Abraham ice rink. Since then, 33 flavors of ice cream have been opened to the public.
“The situation is not ideal because we need three consecutive days of cold temperatures around -15 degrees and a layer of 10 cm of snow to form good ice,” explains Karine Desbiens on behalf of the city of Quebec.
There are calls to increase the number of artificial ice surfaces to reduce dependence on the weather, and Quebec announced several 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
Due to the unpredictable weather at the beginning of the year, no one wants to comment on the question of when the outdoor natural ice rinks will open.
Aside from 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 to skate outside in Montreal: Beaver Lake in Mount Royal Park , the Old Port of Montreal and the Tranquille Promenade at Place des Festivals. Yesterday, skaters flocked there when Le Journal passed by.
“The City of Montreal is closely monitoring weather conditions and as soon as the cold and weather permit, maintenance teams are working hard to provide services to citizens,” explains public relations officer Kim Nantais, emphasizing that free skating is still possible in the city 34 Arenas.
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