Robert Crown Community Center

• 1801 Main Street
• Evanston, IL 60202
• (847) 448-8258
• Website

Traveling to Chicago in January is always a crapshoot. We got the worst of it this past weekend. 

L and B were both scheduled to skate with their synchronized skating teams at Synchro Illinois this past weekend. 

B’s team was scheduled early morning on Saturday so it was decided parents would drive his team’s skaters and we’d all stay at the same hotel in Evanston. 

We left Friday morning after school was cancelled not knowing how long it would take us to get there. 

It wasn’t a bad trip. We ran into some snow and a lot of rain. We got to Evanston before 1 PM and the kids spent some time hanging out as a team and the parents had a little bit of bonding at a nearby pub. 

L’s team was scheduled to take a charter bus Saturday before the sun came up and get to Evanston late morning. The bus driver refused to drive them. It was a whole thing but the unfortunate reality is three of our synchro teams didn’t make it to Evanston. 

The two that did because they drove the night before had great skates and both finished second in their flights.

Synchro Illinois is an annual competition held at the Robert Crown Community Center in Evanston, IL. The public ice rink is on Main Street at the intersection with Dodge Avenue. The Center is fairly new having been completed in 2020. In addition to ice sheets, there are outdoor soccer and softball fields, a library branch, two full sized gyms and a daycare. 

I’m going to start with my biggest complaint and work from there. The parking lot sucks. It’s waaaaaaaaay to small to host a big event like this and there’s no place around it for over flow parking. You have to park on the street and since this weekend was the middle of a snow storm, street parking was hard to deal with and also kind of confusing. No one wanted to get towed and no one wanted to pay a fine but you had to take the chance. I really don’t know how/why this place hosts big events. There’s no public transportation that can get you to the building either so they bring in thousands of people but only have parking for a couple hundred. The parking situation is a big (and really the only) reason I hope we stop going to this competition at some point. 

So…moving past that, the Robert Crown Community Center is actually a really nice facility. When you come in through the main doors, there is a large lobby area. This is great on Synchro Illinois weekend because there are a lot of people. The large lobby is where you’d get skates for the public skates and it’s where you kind of branch off to go to the rest of the facility. 

There are two NHL sized ice rinks in the facility and nine locker rooms that can service either one. The rinks are right next to each other with a hallway and locker room in between them. Rink 2 is the smaller of the two rinks and is more of a practice rink as there isn’t much seating.

The main rink, Rink 1, is pretty large. You can enter either at ground level where there is a set of double doors that take you in at the bottom of the bleachers. 

Or, you can go up a flight of stairs and enter the rink from above the seating area. 

There are a couple of things I really love about this rink and am really jealous we don’t have in Kalamazoo. 

The first is the walking track that surrounds the rink. The entire upper level has a four lane track that surrounds the entire rink. We spend so much time at the rink and so much of it is spent sitting and watching. I would love to have a track like this that surrounds the rink so we could still watch but keep moving while we do so. 

The other really cool feature is the heated seats. The plastic seat tops are bolted right to the concrete and there are little slits in the seat that send heat to your tush. Instead of the overhead heaters that don’t seem to be on at almost every rink we go to, the seating area is heated through the bleachers you sit on. The rink stays pretty warm and you can comfortably sit and watch a game or competition is short sleeves. 

The arena itself is pretty nice…and it’s big…which is a big plus when synchro teams come to town. There is only seating which is a bummer for figure skating because that means all of the performances face away from the audience. The judges are set up in the hockey benches on the other side of the rink so that means the audience is looking at backs. I tried walking around the track to the judges side but they had it gated off so even the video I took is of backs. 

The other bummer is the netting and the glass. When our club hosts Kickoff Classic, Wings Event Center takes down the netting and the glass so you can see unobstructed. I realize this is a lot of work for a community rink and most places don’t do that unless they’re hosting a national competition but it’s a touch Kalamazoo does that makes such a big difference in the fan experience. 

Food is non-existent. There are no concession stands or anything. There are a few vending machines just outside of Rink 1 but that’s it. You’ll need to leave to get something or be sure to bring snacks with you. 

It was such a weird, frustrating, exciting day because of the bus debacle. B’s team did amazing turning out their best skate of the season. They worked so hard and we’re so happy they got to compete. 

L’s team was super disappointed. We were in Evanston, she was at a friend’s house in Kalamazoo. One of the teams that didn’t make it had their season ended. The other two teams will compete at US Figure Skating Synchronized Skating Midwest Sectionals next week in Wichita, KS so at least their season isn’t over. 

The Robert Crown Community Center is a really nice facility with a lot of great features. The parking just sucks…and sucks is such an understatement. Synchro teams consist of anywhere from 6-20 skaters so you have the corresponding number of parents who need a place to park. I wouldn’t even mind walking or taking a shuttle from somewhere but that’s not an option. You have to drive around the neighborhood until you find a spot in front of someone’s house…and if it has snowed, you better be able to read the parking signs to make sure you’re on the right side of the street.