The Ice Rink is Coming, But When is Up to the Weather

If there's anything Meriden residents have learned from 2011, it's that just about everything – power, heat, even Halloween – can depend on the weather.

And so it is with the city's downtown ice rink at the HUB. The city will offer outdoor skating for a second year in a row this winter, but exactly when it will start is up to Mother Nature.

"As soon as we see a forecast of five days of freezing temperatures, that's when we spring into action," said Mayor Michael S. Rohde this week, adding that if December has a normal weather pattern, the rink should be open before Christmas. Last year it

The rink needs five consecutive days of sub-32-degree weather for the ice to set, according to Parks Department Director Mark Zebora, whose staff is in charge of setting it up.

Public Works will start preparing the site the week of Dec. 12, said Director Bob Bass, grading the area of the HUB where the rink will go and putting down a level sand base for it to go on. After this is done, Parks will set up the base and sides of the rink, but save the liner – which performs much like a swimming pool liner – and water until staff sees a 5-day below-freezing span in the forecast.

When the rink is set, the city will hold an official opening day celebration, Rohde said, like it did last year. This year the mayor said the rink will also be better lit and the warming fire nearby will likely be bigger – fueled by all the brush that came down in the October storm.