Wayne Gretzky Estates Winery and Distillery is once again offering free skating on its outdoor rink in an initiative they call Community Skate Day.
The free skates are Mondays for the duration of the season. The rink is open every day to the public at a cost of $5.
“This year's been a bit of a struggle with the weather,” said Mark Vaiana, estate manager. “It's the latest start we've had to a rink season just because of the warm weather. The rain was making things a little more difficult too, but we're finally rocking right now, so hopefully it stays that way.”
The rink has been a part of the winery since it opened in 2017. A refrigeration system under the rink allows it to stay frozen “up to about 5 degrees, but the sun sometimes can have an effect if it's warmer,” explained Vaiana.
Estate mixologist Alex Archer was tending bar and handing out rental skates on Monday, and said he noticed an increase in skaters from previous outdoor days this season. It costs $10 per person to rent skates, and in the past, said Vaiana, “Gretzky’s donates proceeds from skate rentals to local charities, such as Newark Neighbours, but have not yet generated enough for a donation this year.”
Skaters of all talents were on the ice on Monday afternoon. Some were hugging the side boards while others skated hand-in-hand or showed off their stopping skills.
Friends Steve Paget from Niagara Falls, and Tracie Donais from Beamsville, usually skate for exercise at the Beamsville community centre a couple of times a week, but heard about community skate days and chose to change things up by coming to Gretzky's. “It's just the vibe,” said Donais. “You can come here and you have the outdoor fire and the ice rink, and just the whole hockey Gretzky legend and the history behind him.”
Nick Antonacci and Francesca Puccinelli, from Mississauga and Toronto “always stop at Wayne’s when we come into Niagara” and just happened to be in town on community skate day. Celebrating Francesca’s birthday, the pair planned to watch the NCAA football championship from Niagara.
“One day, I'll probably move here,” said Puccinelli. “We're engaged to be married and when the day comes to get married, it’ll probably be in Niagara, so we'll be back.”
“I'm tired of the traffic and we kind of want that small town feel,” added Antonacci.
A group of 18 retired educators from Niagara Falls decided to make the community skate day one of their regular planned outings.
“We came because we heard that there was a community skate day and all the people in our group are retired teachers from Saint Paul High School in Niagara Falls, and we have a habit of getting together,” laughed John Zeman who was proudly sporting a Buffalo Bills toque. It was their first time at the rink, but former vice-principal Tom Marshall vowed it wouldn’t be their last. “Live life,” he said. “Everybody's friendly here and they make us feel very welcome.”
St Catharines resident Owen Lockyer met his girlfriend Jordan Mathis while at university in Texas. “She's in town for a few days, visiting from Texas, and we thought it would be a fun Canadian activity to come skating. We saw that Gretzky’s was free today as a community day, so we thought we'd check it out,” said Lockyer.
Mathis noted that it has been a couple of years since she has been on ice, “so I'm a little bit rusty, but I'm excited to be back out here. We tried to go into the city to one of the public rinks, but the line was so long that we couldn't even get in during their public skating hours.”
Emily Scholtens and Justine Thomas, friends from Niagara Falls, also came to skate. “I use the rental and Emily has her own pair” of hockey skates, said Thomas, who got on the ice “for the first time in a really long time, for me, so we’ll see how this goes.”
Vaiana pays attention to the weather as much as anybody else does, he said. “You don't always have a ton of confidence in what the extended forecast is. It doesn't look like a really promising season, but again, I don't hold too much weight to that. The past couple of weeks have been great, so I'm just hoping that it continues that way.”
Community skate days are every Monday for the duration of the season. “We always try to get into March Break, but that's easier said than done,” said Vaiana.