New Management

Yesterday was the grand opening for the new Polar Ice Tucson. There were a lot of people at the rink. In checking out the info available it appears there are some good changes and some less so; others I'm not sure about.

Good:

• Public sessions are $6 instead of $7
  
• Coffee club is 5 days a week and $6 instead of $8
  
• Freestyle sessions are $6/hr, down from $9 (punch card) or $12 drop-in) (!)
  
• They are offering a yearly public session pass for $250 for adults
  
• They are offering early morning freestyle sessions at 6, 7:10 and 8:20 a.m. Mon - Thurs.
  
• Skate school will be only $60 instead of $96 (!)
  

Less Good:

• They will only have evening public sessions Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.
  

Not sure:

• They are switching the learn-to-skate curriculum from USFSA to ISI. Granted, this doesn't directly affect me since I'm not in skate school anyway.
  

I'm not sure about the ISI thing. I've only found the basic curriculum online and it seems considerably weaker than the USFSA Basic 8s, but I suspect the other stuff is in the freestyle curriculum, which I'm told goes all the way to triples. I'm not sure how much difference that makes; are people expecting to be learning triples in a group lesson setting? That seems a bit much to me.

The management did say that the TSFC will still be USFSA and there will still be USFSA testing available. That's important.

I've been told that they will begin doing extensive renovations on the ice surfaces; I'm rather hoping that at least some of that will happen while I'm on my "vacation" but that is probably asking too much. Anyway since there are plenty of cracks and bad spots, it's a good thing.

I noticed that the ice surface looked different after Zamboni-ing and I asked one of the staff about it; he said that he'd been told to use a cold-water flush for public sessions and reserve the usual warm-water flush for freestyle sessions. The explanation given is that the warm-water flush we're used to, which gives a nice, smooth, glassy finish, is "too slippery" for beginners. Well, it's certainly true that it's less smooth anyway.

There's a lot to think about in the New Regime. For the most part the changes seem quite positive. It will be interesting to see which will win, my laziness or my desire to skate, when it comes time to consider those weekday morning freestyle sessions. I suspect the 8:20 one won't be too crowded during the school year.