Can you Ice Skate?

[LittleGuy]

I was talking Ice Hockey with Iain the other day and shared a couple of stories about playing myself and I wondered are there any/many other forum members who were able to Ice Skate. I'm suspecting most of my fellow Canadian posters here can to at least a decent degree, and that might also be the case with American and Russian posters but wasn't sure about others.

I would say I'm a fairly decent skater myself though I don't get on ice very often anymore and probably have quite a bit of rust in my technique, I was also never as good at stopping with my right foot than I was with my left for some reason, and on a hockey team(or compared to women in figure skating/ringette) I was probably fairly average, though was better than most of my non-hockey friends.

I think a fair minumum standard would be if you are able to do a couple of laps around the local rink(pond) with no assistance and you can generally keep your balance 95% of the time along with some directional and stopping techniques.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

I've been ice skating maybe 3 or 4 times, but never had any major problems when I did go (though the last time was the best part of 10 years ago!).
A lot of inline skating/roller hockey as a youngster gave me relatively decent balance for it, I think.

Wouldn't mind going again, actually - really got keen on the idea watching the Winter Olympics last time round, but was miles away from anywhere that did it. There's a (tiny) rink not far from where I live now, though, and a couple of pro (I think? Highest level in the UK anyway) Ice Hockey teams not an unreasonable distance away too - might have to go and watch a game. It hadn't even crossed my mind until now.

 

[lucky number 7]

I'm actually decent , fall occasionally but have no issues going multiple laps backwards and turning sharp ,

Would loved to have played hockey though , one time skating in austria wew were on this very very fine ice , slippiest i;ve ever been on and I fell smashed my chin off the floor and ****** blood all over the rink , continued like a boss

 

[LittleGuy]

You definately get used to holding the stick while skating, and it's strange when you go free skating or those rare moments in practice when you didn't have one. Last couple of times I've played it's done a number on my back though, the equipment is ridiculously expensive these days so I don' think I'll ever get back into it in a serious manner.

 

[dullonien]

I'm not bad. Only been a small number of times, but I've done plenty of in-line skating which translates well.

The biggest problem I find is not having my own ice skates because the ones you hire here in the UK are simply atrocious. I can't quite understand how they can make something so uncomfortable, it's as if no ergonomic aspects of a human beings feet have been taken into consideration. Being mostly solid plastic, with no padding doesn't help, but even then there is no space given for the knobbly bones either side of the ankles. I always end up with sore rub marks after 30min or so, which will develop into blisters within an hour. Every ice rink I've been to use the same blasted ones as well, as did my local leisure centre when I used to visit the roller disco when I was younger.

 

[nickdnz]

Same as most others. There aren't any ice skating rings permanently up in Wellington - but the last time one was up I took a girl a long to it and didn't embarris myself so I suppose I'm not too bad. Can generally skate comfortably without a likely chance of falling on my ass.

 

[TRF_heineken]

Dude! Come to SA, nobody can Ice Skate here!! we hardly get snow in the winter, and then it's not that cold for our lakes to freeze over.

The some cities have Ice Rinks. the closest one to me is about 300km away. and I have no urge whatsoever to travel that far just to fall my ass off and run the risk of someone chopping off my fingers with their skates while my face is on the ice...