Kenny Ward told me about how he maintains Toronto skating rinks.
There are 10 rinks across the city, all are free to everyone to use, and each is resurfaced by a Zamboni [1] twice every day. Mr. Ward works morings with one Zamboni and one truck and trailer, and another Toronto Recreation [2] employee operates a second Zamboni and truck and trailer. Mr. Ward resurfaces five rinks on his morning shift, and the other employee resurfaces 5. Then there is a similar afternoon/eve shift which resurfaces 5 and 5.
That means the 10 rinks are each maintained twice every day.
Mr. Ward drives the truck that pulls the Zamboni on the trailer in the photo. And when he gets to the parks where the skating rinks are, he is the Zamboni driver, bringing it down off the trailer and going into that familiar modified figure eight pattern to clean and resurface the ice. The several outside rinks I visited had ammonia refrigeration loops under them and a refrigeration plant in a building next to the rink. The buildings housed bathrooms and changing rooms.
He was stopping for lunch when I caught up with him. I told him I was from Cleveland where we didn’t have anything like the Toronto rinks. Mr. Ward beamed when I told him his report to me would be up on the internet today.
In Cleveland - as Roldo (link) points out Cool Cleveland [3] this week - our tax money goes to the private corporations who profit from professional sports teams. The profit is privatized, and the costs for the baseball, football, and basketball forums are socialized.
Why did NEO make these decisions to spend our tax money not on our own kids, our own parks and recreation facilities? Instead NEO has decided to use our tax money to build stadiums for professional for-profit sports corporations - and then give those multi million dollar stadiums away to the corporations free of charge.
Think free ice skating rinks all over Toronto have any effect minimizing youth crime in Toronto?
Would your kids go out after dinner in Cleveland to join a pick up hockey match?
They would in Toronto!
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