Let the Outdoor Skating Begin

Every year the Alexandria City Park Department has to make the decision, is the ice safe enough to support skaters at Noonan Park, or not. To make the skating surface as smooth as possible on a natural pond, the city uses a Zamboni. A couple of years ago that Zamboni broke through the ice and ever since then has the crew extra cautious. Thursday morning City Parks employee Nate Borden hopped on the machine and gave the ice its first grooming of the winter season. The work is being done in preparation for the tentative opening on Saturday January 20th. The warming house will be open at Noonan Park daily from 3:00-5:00pm and again from 6:00-9:30pm. (905 Lake St, Alexandria, MN)

The ice at Noonan Park will have a few hockey nets for shooting pucks, but no hockey boards will go up due to the unusually warm weather during the entire winter season. The rest of the ice will be open skate.

BIG OLE PARK

The Parks Department also hopes to open up outdoor skating down at Big Ole Park this weekend. The ice surface is much smaller, but is open 24 hours a day. Lights are hung above the skating surface. They are recommending no hockey, simply open skating. As of this article the rink is not fully flooded, but extreme cold through this weekend should make the process easy once crews are able to fill it with water. (The photo below is from the inaugural 2023 season at Big Ole Park)

Thanks to generous donations, there is free use of the gently used ice skates of varying sizes that will be onsite. You are asked to return the skates when you are finished so that others may use them.