The line is almost out the door on a recent morning as IceTown in Carlsbad opens for public session skating. The rink has been open since before 6 a.m. for figure skating lessons; now it’s the turn of the school-age kids to take to the ice.
Many of them, like 11-year-old Eli Benson, and his 12-year-old buddy Ethan Linley, have never tried the ice before.
“Rolling skating, but never ice skating,” said Benson. “I’ll try it out. I think it’ll be fun!”
A whole bunch of their friends are here, Linley said. So they’ll get initiated together.
Not everyone is stumbling around the edges of the rink, though.
David Levitt stood proudly on the sidelines and watched as his 19-year-old daughter gracefully tried out her double axles.
“This area, North County near the coast, has needed a rink,” Levitt said. “And they don’t have any close. Escondido is about 20 miles, La Jolla is 20 miles. So there’s a need for one in this area.“
Levitt hopes his daughter will land a job at this rink — as a figure-skating teacher.
IceTown in Carlsbad is one of about half a dozen indoor ice rinks in San Diego County. Unlike the outdoor rinks that open for the winter holidays, they stay open year-round.
IceTown owner Alex Dunaev said the busiest season is October through March. But the indoor rink stays in business through the summer, too.
“During summer a lot of people like to stay in the ice rink because it’s cold when it’s hot outside,“ he said. “It keeps them off the street, especially the kids.”
Dunaev runs another rink in Riverside and has been working to open this one in San Diego’s North County for the last two years. He said the presence of two professional NHL teams - the Anaheim Ducks and the Los Angeles Kings - has helped make ice hockey a popular sport in Southern California. And the recent Winter Olympics brought in more wanna-be skaters.
The rink is open seven days a week, 20 hours a day with teams playing “Broom Ball,” a version of ice hockey without skates, sometimes until one or two in the morning, Denaev said.
"January first ... that's one of our busiest days," Denaev said. "We'll be open all day."
A look at the schedule reveals so many activities that some more experienced ice hockey league team games are postponed until spring, for lack of free ice time.
