Back on the ice: Ice rink opens, giving children, parents some needed joy

MOSES LAKE — In a year of canceled activities and shortened sports seasons, Michelle Rainey was glad to see her children don skates and hit the Moses Lake ice rink Wednesday.

Her children have stayed active on the family farm, she said, but their involvement in junior rodeo was curtailed by the pandemic, as was her son John Rainey’s season with his school’s soccer team. He recently made the Elite Player Development team out of Spokane, but that hasn’t started again, she added.

“There’s been a lot of things that he and other kids can’t do,” Rainey said. “My kids are pretty active because we have a little farm, we’re outside with the cows and things, but for the social interaction part of it, it’s important, and his number one favorite thing to do is hockey.”

“We didn’t know if the ice would open up, and when he found out that it was going to open he was so excited,” she added.

It took some added effort this year to open up the ice rink in accordance with state and local health guidelines, said Tom Los, recreation supervisor with the city of Moses Lake. After initial uncertainty, the city came to an agreement with the county health district, allowing the rink to open with limited capacity and added social distancing.

Coming to an agreement required a lot of compromises, of course. To accommodate health guidelines, the rink, which can sometimes see as many as 200 people on the ice a night, has been limited to a maximum of 40 people at a time. Guests are encouraged to register online, both to reduce the amount of cash exchanged and points of contact with staff, and also to reserve one of the very limited spaces, Los said. Masks and gloves are required, and children are only allowed to have one spectator at a time on-site with them.

To make up for the reduced capacity, the rink had to raise its prices this year as well, Los said. Typically, the rink charges $6 for entrance or an additional $4 for rental skates, if needed. This year, admissions will be a flat rate of $10, though this will still include skate rental if necessary, and is still cheaper than most large skating rinks across the state, Los said.

“There’s a lot of people who don’t have skates, we didn’t want them to be charged extra $6 or something for rental, and we didn’t want them to not be able to skate,” Los said. “One of our goals is to always make sure that we’re affordable for everybody.”

Despite all of the changes, the rink opening was a welcome surprise to many, including children and staff members.

“I’ve been playing hockey here since I was four,” said Rink Guard Thomas Molitor. “It’s a huge blessing to have it open because I don’t know what you’d do out here in the winter without it. It’s great, anything that gets anybody outside — I’ve got cabin fever myself just doing school online. I can’t imagine what these kids in Zoom have to go through every day.”

A number of kids in youth hockey circling the rink Wednesday, while waiting for their practice to start, agreed.

“It feels great being able to be on the ice,” said Ethan Kling, a member of the Moses Lake Coyotes youth hockey team.

Some of the restrictions can be bothersome, at times, like the requirement to always wear a face mask, said Camden Barlow, one of Kling’s teammates.

“You’re breathing hard and you’re skating hard, then you just have the urge to take off your masks to breath fresh air, but every time you take off the mask they tell you, ‘blah blah blah,’ you have to leave the ice,” Barlow said.

But all of the kids, and plenty of their parents, are just glad to be on the ice.

“This is a huge part of our winter,” Rainey said.

Emry Dinman can be reached via email at edinman@columbiabasinherald.com.

“This is a huge part of our winter,” Rainey said.