It's not necessarily a bonus, different sports need completely different ice properties (e.g. figure skating vs hockey), and a managed arena needs ease of maintenance.
I spend an enormous amount of time at the rink (18 ice times in the last 9 days). Can you explain this? Because I don't see the difference between the ice for figure skating vs hockey, both of which happen daily at our local rink.
Hockey needs colder/tougher ice, for figure skating it ideally needs to be a whole degree C warmer to get better blade penetration. Yes you can balance it and public rinks will keep it constant throughout a day, however for dedicated events it's adjusted (at least it is in our rink).
It's not necessarily a bonus, different sports need completely different ice properties (e.g. figure skating vs hockey), and a managed arena needs ease of maintenance.
I spend an enormous amount of time at the rink (18 ice times in the last 9 days). Can you explain this? Because I don't see the difference between the ice for figure skating vs hockey, both of which happen daily at our local rink.
Hockey needs colder/tougher ice, for figure skating it ideally needs to be a whole degree C warmer to get better blade penetration. Yes you can balance it and public rinks will keep it constant throughout a day, however for dedicated events it's adjusted (at least it is in our rink).
You need the surface of the ice rink to melt though in order to "skate".
You're going to have to explain this we well. I've skated perfectly fine at -40, and there was no melting going on.
When there's melting going on at the rink, we're not allowed on the ice.
The melting is just at the interface between the skate and the ice. (It re-freezes after.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_skating#Physical_mechanics...