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Sizes and Uses

An ice rink is a frozen body of water that is often hardened using chemicals. It is a place where people can ice skate or play winter sports for example: speed skating, figure skating, ice hockey, bandy, rink bandy, ringette, ice stock sport and curling as well as exhibitions, contests and ice shows.

Basically there are two rink sizes in use that ice rinks are based on, although there is a great deal of variation in the dimensions of actual ice rinks.

• 85ft x 200ft (26m x 61m) Which is the Official National Hockey League rink size.
• 98.4ft x 197ft (30m x 60m) Which is the Official Olympic/International rink size.

Types

• Natural, where freezing occurs from cold ambient temperatures.
• Artificial (or mechanically-frozen), where a coolant produces cold temperatures in the surface below the water, causing the water to freeze.
• There are also synthetic ice rinks where skating surfaces are made out of plastics.

Artificial

In any climate, an area of ice surface can be installed in a properly built space. This consists of a bed of sand or a slab of concrete, with pipes running through it. The pipes carry a chilled fluid which is usually a salt brine or water with antifreeze, or in smaller rinks they use refrigerant. This lowers the temperature of the slab so that water placed on top will freeze creating the ice rink surface. A more proper technical term for this method is 'mechanically frozen' ice.

Modern rinks have a specific procedure for preparing the surface. Once the pipes are cold, a thin layer of water is sprayed onto the sand or concrete to seal and level it out. This thin layer is painted white or pale blue and then the necessary markings, logos or other decorations are added. When this is dry more thin layers of water are sprayed on top of this building it up to a thickness of around 2–3 centimetres (1 inch). It takes between 12,000 and 15,000 gallons (45,000 to 57,000 L) to form a Hockey rink surface.

Synthetic

Synthetic rinks are made up of many panels of thin surfaced materials assembled on a sturdy, level and smooth sub-floor. You can put one together on top of concrete, wood, dirt or grass to create a large skating area.

These are constructed from a solid polymer material either High Density Polyethelene (HDPE) or Ultra-High Molecular Weight Polyethylene (UHMW). These two materials are the only ones that offer reasonable skating characteristics designed for skating using normal metal-bladed ice skates. UHMW synthetic rinks offer the most ice-like skating but also are the most expensive.

An Artifical Ice Skating rink	A Synthetic Ice Skating Rink