It might not look like much but for champion figure skater amy pale thorpe the humble glenorchy ice rink is where she’s honed her craft it’s been her skating home since she was 10 years old it means so much like it’s essentially is my second home i’m here sometimes more than my own home
So yeah it’s like it means the world to me at northern suburbs mainstay the rink was opened in 1980 and has been tasmania’s humble home of ice sports for the past 40 years it’s the only rink in the state and the kaiatinas family has owned it since day one they’ve seen
Hundreds of thousands of skaters come and go we didn’t know it would go for 40 years but it was the start of something lovely i think for the family though it’s time to move on a skyrocketing real estate market and pending retirement means they’ve decided to sell
Look if somebody comes in and says yep let’s keep it as an ice rink brilliant that’s great but if they don’t i can’t i can’t be too sad about it with a property boom and a housing shortage developer interest is likely and the future of the rink uncertain saying goodbye would be tough
For another family leah hall grew up figure skating at the glenorchy rink now her daughter sienna has dreams of representing australia it’s been a huge part of her life and it yeah it would she’d have to find a different sport because the options would be traveling to melbourne and we just don’t
Have the resources to do it the van diemen hockey league will host its 2020 grand final tomorrow and with no other rinks in the state it could be the last hurrah for not only the league but the entire sport in tasmania there’s a lot of blood sweat and tears in the ice and
If you look hard enough you can probably still see some of it in there but yeah definitely a lot of memories for a lot of people who’ve been involved in it for a long long time tasmania’s ice kings and queens hoping they won’t be left out in the cold chris robotom abc news
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