Freshman Thomas Salamzadeh feels the open skate offered at the St. Louis Park Rec Center is a good way to bond and spend time with people.

“(You can) skate with your buddies,” he said. “It brings the community together.”

According to Jason Eisold, manager of the Rec Center, the opportunity to skate around the indoor rink has been offered for many years.

“We have always had a consistent open skating program here at the Rec Center for probably as long as the facility has been open,” he said.

In addition to skating inside, with the creation of a new rink outdoors, Eisold said the Rec Center is bringing open skating outside with the goal of eventually offering a unique setting in which to skate.

“(With) the outdoor rink, now you can skate outside and still kind of be covered from the elements once the roof gets put on for next season,” Eisold said.

Eisold believes skating is a big part of Minnesota culture, and therefore community members should have the opportunity to explore it. He said the Rec Center will give them that chance year round.

“It is kind of an important opportunity to make sure we are serving the members of our community with that unique, fun and traditional experience. We have gotten the best of both worlds,” Eisold said. “Whether you want to skate in Aug. or you want to skate in the winter, you can do it.”

Junior Ilana Meisler, an open skate participant, said she thinks the open skating presents a good opportunity for skaters of all levels to enjoy themselves.  

“A lot of skaters go there to practice,” Meisler said. “(From) really good skaters practicing (to) little kids skating for the first time.”

According to Eisold, this chance for skaters with all types of experience to skate for fun has also led to an increase in popularity and quality of the program.

“Our program has actually gotten bigger and better. We have added a significant amount of rental skates, so we have updated those, and started promoting the open skate times much more than we have in the past. We have seen a definite positive result of that,” he said.

Eisold encourages anyone interested to check out the website for more information regarding indoor and outdoor open skate times at www.stlouispark.org.