The Rink

• 75 Houston Street
• Battle Creek, MI 49017
• (269) 963-7465
• Website

If you haven’t heard, there’s a pretty bad ice shortage in Kalamazoo that is only going to get worse.

Wings West closed last summer and was sold to a private equity firm that is planning on getting rid of all the local user groups and running it’s own programming in house.

Wings Event Center is our only source of ice right now but those three rinks are scheduled to close in 2027 after the K-Wings move to the new arena being built downtown. When that happens, the current user groups (KOHA, GSKA, WMU Stallions, SCHSHL as well as all the adult leagues) may be without any ice.

Wings Event Center is pretty much full every day of the week but they still have other programming outside of ice events. This past weekend was the MHSAA team wrestling finals and the MyWay Wrestling state tournament. All of the available ice surfaces were out of commission.

A lot of our figure skaters have a competition coming up this weekend in East Lansing. It’s the first competition of the year so taking a whole weekend off wasn’t really something the club wanted to do. There’s no other available options in Kalamazoo so we asked Battle Creek.

The Rink in Battle Creek is a one ice sheet facility on Houston Street near McCamly Street just off of downtown Battle Creek. The arena is a little hard to find at first. It’s behind the post office and next to the Battle Creek Transit Station. You get to the rink by turning off Hamblin Avenue to Carlyle Street. There are large parking lots on either side of the big metal and brick building. The facility was owned by the City of Battle Creek from it’s opening until 2009. The current owners bought the building in 2016 and apparently just rebuffed an offer from Black Bear. Opting instead to keep The Rink locally owned.

The Rink is home to the Battle Creek Kernels Junior Hockey team which play in the USPHL Premier and the Greater Battle Creek Ice Hockey Association.

There are two entrances for the building. If you’re coming for a ticketed event, like the Kernels, there is an entrance closer to the large parking lot to the north end of the building that says “Events.”

Right inside that door is a ticket office. It’s right in the middle of the bleachers at the center ice line. This door wasn’t open when we got there because we were not there for a ticketed event. We had to park in this lot on Sunday because we got there while a KOHA game was happening (yes, KOHA is having to rent ice in Battle Creek too for games because there’s not enough space in Kalamazoo right now).

The other entrance is on the south end of the building. This one says “Skaters.” This is the entrance that is used for open skates, practices, and non-ticketed events.

Right inside this door is the rental skate windows. They have open skates on Sunday afternoons. Outside of that, the ice is pretty busy so there’s not a lot of other options for that.

There’s a nice big lobby area to sit and put skates on but we’ve kind of got our skaters trained now to not sit in the public space and leave bags all over the place. That was a change we had to make when we moved over to Wings Event Center. There is a lot of bench space to do just that though.

We’ve gotten our skaters used to using the assigned locker rooms. That way, they’re not leaving bags in the public space where everyone can trip over them. There are five locker rooms at The Rink. Four of them are right off the ice surface while the fifth, a much bigger, nicer locker room we were assigned to, is at the back of the facility through the lobby. There is a dry erase board next to the rink that shows locker room assignments.

There appears to be a concession stand in the lobby area but it wasn’t open either of the days we were there. There were KOHA hockey games after us on Friday and before us on Sunday and it didn’t open for that. There are some vending machines back by the rest rooms but those were turned off too. There was no place to get a Coke or a bottle of water without running to the gas station down the street…which I did a couple of times. It’s weird not being able to insert some kind of food details in a “food blog” but I think I’ve explained myself enough about this blog being more of a journal and I wish I had named it something else….

The ice surface is an NHL sized ice sheet with a seating area for 1000 people. The benches are on the far side of the venue while the bleachers are right next to the entry doors.

The logo in the middle of the ice is the GBCIHA Bruins logo which is similar if not the same to the Battle Creek Public Schools Bruins logo.

The bleachers are pretty typical metal and plastic bleachers. There are heaters in the seating area that are most effective above row five but I don’t think they were on.

One thing I couldn’t really check out was a room at the north end of the ice. It looks like a private party room but I couldn’t get down to it. There is also an elevated platform space next to the room right next to the boards in the corner so I’m wondering if they use this as a private area for Kernels games as well.

The Rink’s website warns you it’s going to be cold but as someone who spends a lot of time at ice rinks, I rarely take that warning seriously. Yes, ice rinks are cold but they’re usually bearable. The Rink is not. It is cold. It is see your breath sitting in the stands cold. There are heaters but I don’t think they were turned on. Even the kids skating were complaining about just how cold it was. A lot of our skaters will do two hour sessions but a lot of them were getting off early because it was so cold. They would run back in to the heated locker room for a quick break then come back out and try to go again for a while. L wasn’t feeling good and the cold was affecting her breathing while B let the cold get to him and wasn’t able to focus by the end of time on the ice.

Other than the cold, every one had good things to say about The Rink. It’s a nice facility. It’s super clean, the sound system is great, and all the people were really nice and welcoming. We have a few more dates scheduled there later this month when Wings Event Center is being used for something else. I know we’re all pretty grateful right now to have another quality place to go as we figure out what’s going to happen to our ice time here in Kalamazoo.