anyone from the Great Skate Roller Centre in Regina, Saskatchewan?

[Darius S. Naqvi]

Hello,

[Note: I'm cross-posting to the inline newsgroup in the hope of
catching a few old roller skaters. Follow-ups re-directed to the
roller newsgroup; please respect the Followup-to: header.]

I'm just wondering if there is anyone around these newsgroups that
used to skate at the Great Skate Roller Centre in Regina, Saskatchewan
(Canada). The south location was open from sometime around 1978 to
about June 30, 1986. The north location was larger, and was open for
some subset of that time range. Maybe 1981 or 1982 until about 1985
or so. I spent a lot of time at the south location, from 1980 until
1986. I've recently gotten back into skating, because a new rink just
opened in Edmonton, Alberta this past December. (It's called Sports
World; see www.sports-world.ca for information. I have no association
with them other than being thrilled that their existence gives me the
chance to roller skate again.)

The south location is now an SGI (Saskatchewan Gov't Insurance) claims
centre; I don't know what happened to the north location.

It would be nice to reminisce with some of the gang that I remember
(by sight, but unfortunately, not so much by name) from that time and
place. I'd also be really interested if anyone has some photos of the
place. Anybody who gets the irresistible urge to skate backwards in
a figure 8 whenever you hear the song "Do it again" by Steely Dan will
know what I'm talking about.

[Bob Cardone]

I was wondering how popular roller skating is, in general in Canada.
I have visited Canada many times, and while in Montreal , I have seen
some Inline skaters down in the Historic District, but in general, I
have always assumed that Ice skating was the norm. Maybe you can
share some information on the popularity of Roller skating ( either
Quad or Inline) in Canada.

Bob

Post by Darius S. Naqvi
Hello,
[Note: I'm cross-posting to the inline newsgroup in the hope of
catching a few old roller skaters. Follow-ups re-directed to the
roller newsgroup; please respect the Followup-to: header.]
I'm just wondering if there is anyone around these newsgroups that
used to skate at the Great Skate Roller Centre in Regina, Saskatchewan
(Canada). The south location was open from sometime around 1978 to
about June 30, 1986. The north location was larger, and was open for
some subset of that time range. Maybe 1981 or 1982 until about 1985
or so. I spent a lot of time at the south location, from 1980 until
1986. I've recently gotten back into skating, because a new rink just
opened in Edmonton, Alberta this past December. (It's called Sports
World; see www.sports-world.ca for information. I have no association
with them other than being thrilled that their existence gives me the
chance to roller skate again.)
The south location is now an SGI (Saskatchewan Gov't Insurance) claims
centre; I don't know what happened to the north location.
It would be nice to reminisce with some of the gang that I remember
(by sight, but unfortunately, not so much by name) from that time and
place. I'd also be really interested if anyone has some photos of the
place. Anybody who gets the irresistible urge to skate backwards in
a figure 8 whenever you hear the song "Do it again" by Steely Dan will
know what I'm talking about.

[Darius S. Naqvi]

Post by Bob Cardone
I was wondering how popular roller skating is, in general in Canada.
I have visited Canada many times, and while in Montreal , I have seen
some Inline skaters down in the Historic District, but in general, I
have always assumed that Ice skating was the norm. Maybe you can
share some information on the popularity of Roller skating ( either
Quad or Inline) in Canada.

Well, I can give you my sense of the popularity of roller skating in
the parts of Canada where I've lived. However, you have to keep in
mind that Canada is a very large country with a lot of regional
diversity.

In my experience, quad roller skating was extremely popular from the
late '70s to about the mid '80s, at which point it dropped
dramatically, to the point where it died entirely in some, but not
all, regions. As an example, Regina, Saskatchewan has a population of
less than 200,000, yet the roller rink was jam-packed every night, to
the point where they had to open up a much larger second rink. There
were a couple of rinks in Edmonton, Alberta (2001 metro area
population 937,845, city population 666,104). I skated at one of
them, Sports World, a couple of times in the late '80s. This was
after all the rinks in Regina closed due to the drop in popularity. I
only attended the adult night sessions at Sports World, but they
seemed active enough. That rink closed in 1991; I hear there was
another, larger rink that closed sometime in the '80s. So it would
seem that the popularity dropped off in Edmonton in a similar manner
to Regina, albeit the drop-off took longer to kill the rinks, no doubt
because of the larger population base.

Currently, there is a rink that has just started up in Edmonton (it is
also called Sports World). It is quite a bit smaller than the small
rink in Regina. (This is saying something, when you consider that
Regina is much smaller than Edmonton.) It has far fewer sessions than
I recall at the Great Skate in Regina, and the sessions that I've been
at (about one per week over the last 7 or so weeks) have been much,
much less crowded than I recall at Regina. So it appears that there
is enough interest in roller skating for there to be a rink, but the
popularity is a far cry from what it was in the '80s. In comparison,
you could almost say that owning a rink in the '80s was a licence to
print money, compared to what it is today.

Roller skating isn't completely dead, although the average person on
the street thinks so, and the recent newspaper articles about the new
Sports World try to imply as much. I've found rinks with web pages in
Surrey, B.C.; Calgary, Alberta; Winnipeg, Manitoba; and several in the
much more populous Ontario. (I've found a few other rinks on web
pages that list addresses of roller rinks, but they have no official
web sites, so its hard to say if they're still in business.) The
rinks in Surrey and Calgary have been in business for 40 years; the
Winnipeg rink has been around for at least 10 years. Also, there is
an organization called Roller Sports Manitoba
(http://www.rollersport.mb.ca/) that appears to be quite active in
both quad and inline. So it seems that roller skating is still alive
and well in parts of Canada, just not in Regina or Edmonton.

As far as ice skating vs quad and inline goes, it seems to me that
there is a plethora of places to ice skate, to purchase ice skates,
get them sharpened, get lessons, etc. Contrast this to quad roller
skating, where there was no rink in Edmonton for about 12 years, and
there is nowhere to purchase quad skates, get advice, parts, service
or lessons. Basically, if you want to get into quad skating, you have
to be very determined, whereas it's almost hard to *not* get into ice
skating.

As far as inline skating goes, I've seen a few people out skating so
far this spring. (Here in Edmonton, we've only been snowless a couple
of weeks or so.) It is dead easy to find inline skates in stores.
Parts are available too. The selection might not be great, but
contrast this to quad skates, where it is impossible to find anything
in stores. (This is all in Edmonton; other parts of the country could
be different.) All the roller rinks I've found on the web allow both
quad and inline skating, and rent both quad and inline skates.

Well, that's about all I can say. I hope you find this information
useful.