Skaters Worry Ice Rink Plans are Melting Away

By: Laura Berry Email

Posted: Fri 10:45 PM, Oct 12, 2012

Some worry that plans for a Lincoln ice rink are melting away.

The City of Lincoln just announced plans to build an iconic pedestrian bridge, the size of two football fields, to connect the Pinnacle Bank Arena and an area that includes a proposed ice skating rink in the West Haymarket area.

But, avid figure skater Nancy Harris said something is missing.

"If it's going to enhance the haymarket area, great. But I'd still like to know about the ice arena," she said.

Harris has been following the project, known as the Breslow Ice Center since the Breslow Foundation committed seven million dollars towards the rink nearly five years ago, but she's still waiting to find out when the project will be complete.

"The figure skating community and probably the hockey community as well has been trying to get answers about the location of the rink when the rink will be built when the rink will be open, how the rink will be managed since it was made," Harris said.

Harris currently shares the ice box, home of the Lincoln Stars, with so many other skaters that there's not enough ice time to go around.

"The Lincoln ice skating community consists of about 75 figure skaters plus the junior stars plus the Lincoln Stars," Harris said. "We're all trying to use that same patch of ice at the ice box at Innovation Park."

The other obstacle that skaters face is they don't have year-round access to the ice.

That means Harris and others have to travel to Omaha to find a rink for about five months a year.

The bottom line to all this: the city said the ice rink is a go but the University Foundation, which is raising money for the multi-million dollar project, said more dollars are needed.