In the fourth grade, I spent a week researching figure skating and creating a display on a tri fold presentation board to convince my parents to put me in lessons. They still said no. Even eight years later, I want the feeling of wind blowing through my hair with my blades cutting ice as I circle the plex, to pretend I’m a professional ice skater in between the occasion face-plants.
Over winter break I was looking to spend a day living my childhood dream, ice skating. I found the Moylan Iceplex, located at 12550 West Maple Road in Omaha, which looked like a warmer option than the outdoor rinks in town. I was disappointed to find, however, that it took me time traveling back to middle school.
Their Twilight Skate, from 7:30 p.m. until 10:30, is $10 with free skate rental. $10 is a bit pricey considering I had to drive 38 minutes to get there, compared to the $5 admissions to anytime skating at ConAgra Foods Ice Rink just 20 minutes away.
I was impressed with their remarkable amount of food options. They had the usual: soft pretzels, nachos, pizza, candy, etc., but they also had about anything else I could imagine, such as milk, Naked Juice (organic fruit smoothies) and several cereal options.
When I entered the rink I was amazed at how large it was. However, when skating it didn’t feel nearly as big because there were people everywhere.
The place was infested with children. Herds of middle schoolers wove quickly in between older skaters, trying to show off how fast they could skate. The Moylan Iceplex is essentially the ice version of Skate City. I think I witnessed two boys asking girls out and a breakup.Typical middle school.
The DJ was way too old for the job. Either the microphone was terrible or she was holding it too close to her mouth, because I had no idea what she was saying half the time. The music she played, though, was right on for the main age range with songs like “Cha Cha Slide” by DJ Casper.
The games she attempted to play seemed to be too childish for almost everyone there. She’d try to hype everyone up by sayings like “if you have green in your headband, come see me!” She would have been better off just playing music and not talking much.
I think they were trying to make it club-like, but epically failed. They had colored lights, changing colors with the music, but I could barely see them because the rink wasn’t dark enough. They had some of the rink’s lights off, yet it was still well-lit enough to where it was just awkward. It wasn’t dark enough to be club-like but it definitely wasn’t lit. It was a weird in-between stage.
The safety of the rink seemed to be compromised. Their “Skate Guards” were just the ice rink regulars wearing yellow jerseys, not employees. They didn’t help anyone up that fell, had headphones in and were skating way too fast to be paying attention to anyone else. There were way too many young children for there not to be at least one employee watching for safety.
Also, the rink didn’t seem to have any rules. People could skate as fast as they wanted, even when that meant accidently knocking over others. Countless skaters fell because of the chaos. People gathered and just stood in the center of the rink and a few choose to stand right where we’re supposed to be skating. If there were rules, their “Skate Guards” didn’t do a very good job of enforcing them.
A major plus is that it’s one of two year-round skating rinks nearby. If I ever have the urge to go ice skating during the summer, I probably would go back. Maybe.
I’m not going to lie, if I knew about this place in middle school, it would have been the place to go. But for anyone that is in high school or beyond, you might want to wait until winter to go skating at a different rink.
Hailey Stolze
Editor in Chief
