As I sit here and write this edition of Around the Rink, I notice the weather forecast for the upcoming weekend says 20 cm of snow and lows of minus seven. This makes me think I should be getting ready to clear snow off the ice, rather than writing about the final stats for the 2012/13 skating season.

March 26 was the last day for skating. 372 people came out during the month and we opened for 22 of the 31 days. From November 26 to March 26 there were 2458 people who came out to the McCauley community skating rink. For the ten years I have been part of the rink we have never been more successful than this past season and I can say with lots of confidence that the community rink has never been this successful ever.

Why? Well, being able to open the rink seven days a week with planned programming, along with the needed staff to supervise, is one reason. Having the ice cleaned and maintained daily can also be attributed to the success. One of the biggest reasons for all the success is due to “community” – the rink is the pride of McCauley and surrounding neighbourhoods.

I will even go further: this “gem” is becoming the pride of the city! A good example of this is when I am at the rink and I run into people who say they come from another neighbourhood because they really like our facility and think its one of the best. Looking back, I wasn’t always proud. I was sometimes embarrassed and sad that our rink was not being used to its full potential. Having a building with bathrooms and supervision has made ALL the difference. Without the help and vision of so many wonderful community members from all over the city we wouldn’t be so successful.

I want to thank all the following people and businesses for making the McCauley rink have the most successful skating season ever: Ted Green, Al Hamilton, Lyle “Sparky” Kulchisky, Father Jim Holland, Grace Kuipers, KIDS Society, McCauley Community League, E4C McCauley Apartments and David Prodan, McCauley Revitalization and Jane Molstad, City of Edmonton, Challenger Insurance, Northgate Trailers, OML Construction, and to all of you who have come out to the rink. The list of those to thank gets bigger and bigger as more people become involved, and the excitement for this project grows. One day we will say thank you to everyone in the proper way.

In the next issue of the paper I will have information on summer programming – stay tuned!