TINA L. SCOTT
EDITOR
The Merrill Area Park and Recreation Department maintains five outdoor ice skating rinks in Merrill. The rinks, at Memorial, Normal, Stange Park, the MARC, and Ott’s Park, provide good coverage of the entire city and good recreational opportunities, Dan Wendorf, Merrill Parks and Recreation Director said.
While the Department has not opened the warming shelters at the outdoor rinks the last couple of years, he is hopeful they will again in the future. More area residents utilizing the outdoor skating rinks could help make that happen.
Laura Bares said she and her family really enjoy the outdoor skating rink near their home at Normal Park near the gazebo in Merrill. “I love having it,” Bares said. “This is so nice.”
Bares didn’t grow up in Merrill, so she’s really appreciative of the opportunities for nearby outdoor recreation for her family.
“Our goal this year was to spend as many days as we can coming here, because it’s just such a fun thing to do,” she said. “It’s free. It’s close by.”
“We’ve invested in skates for all the kids,” Bares added. From her youngest son, Louis, who is just four years old and in Pre-K, on up to the her older children, they all enjoy coming out on the ice to play.
“We’ve never played traditional hockey,” she said. “We just kinda hit the puck.” But they have fun doing it.
“And we’re just kind of learning how to skate and it helps kind of hold you up,” she added, referring to using the hockey stick as a third touchpoint on the ice, kind of like a tripod.
The kids also enjoy making snow angels in new fallen snow on the ice and playing on the high snowbanks that surround the ice rink.
On a nice winter day, it’s just a great way to get outside and enjoy some fresh air.
“It is such a short window,” Bares said, of the opportunities to really use the outdoor ice rink. “Usually it’s open around Christmas, but this year it was too warm so they didn’t quite get it up yet then. But it’s usually from Christmas until late February or early March. Then you’re already getting warm days where it’s slushy.” Once it gets slushy, the refreezing can make really rough ice. But they’ve had days of skating recently where it’s as smooth as glass, she said. And some days the temperatures are too frigid to enjoy getting out on the rink.
“It goes really fast, so any opportunity, we’re just gonna take,” Bares said.