Centennial Sportsplex
222 25th StreetWe had a fun night out in Nashville Thursday night listening to music at the Tin Roof then meeting up with friends for dinner at Miranda Lambert’s Casa Rosa.
That was Thursday.
Friday was competition day. That’s the reason we were in Nashville.
Skate Nashville is a competition that got on our radar last year. A few skaters from our team have been going for a while and we thought a trip to Nashville sounded fun. Turned out, scores were really good so t was really worth the trip.
Nashville has several community rinks but the competition is held at the Centennial Sportsplex on 25th Street near Patterson Avenue in the West End Neighborhood. The sprawling sports complex near Vanderbilt University has tennis courts, pickleball courts, pools,and ice rinks. It’s right across the street from Centennial Park and close to Tri-Star Centennial Medical Center. The complex is municipally owned by the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County. The facility was built in 1990 It was renovated and expanded before the end of the millennium when the Nashville Predators came to town and needed a practice facility. There are two big parking lots which was enough to accommodate both a large figure skating competition and the users of the rest of the facility while we were there.
When you walk in to the facility, there is an information desk right up front. There is then a long hallway that divides the facility in two. This is where a lot of the vendors and check in information for the competition was. There really isn’t any place to sit in this area so there wasn’t a lot of hanging out outside of the rink like there typically is at competitions. It was a really nice weekend though and there were picnic tables outside if you wanted to get out of the rink.
On one side of this hallway is an Olympic size swimming pool. We didn’t go in there because we didn’t have reason to. This pool is home to the Nashville Aquatic Club.
The other side of the building is the ice rinks. There is one entrance for both rinks right off the main lobby area.
You walk in to Rink A which is the main rink and where our part of the competition was held. This is a kind of unique set up for a rink because everything you need is actually inside the rink and not in the lobby area.
Immediately as you walk in, you’ll find booths lined up against the dasher boards where you can sit and eat and still watch the game. This is something I’ve never seen at an ice rink before but came in really handy as a place to eat lunch and do make up.
The skate rental is also right in this area as you walk.
There’s then a long hallway that’s separated only by brick columns from the ice surface that leads to the numerous locker rooms alongside the rink. We don’t use them as locker room at competitions due to SkateSafe policies. Instead, they’re “ready rooms” for skaters to store their gear and to put skates on.
Opposite the dressing rooms are benches with lockers. You can put skates on here for public skates and lock your stuff up. I spent a lot of time sitting on these benches behind the judges waiting for a kid to come out of the ready rooms. They’re not padded but they were a convenient, out of the way place to sit.
Rink A is an NHL sized rink home to Nashville Youth Hockey League. The ice has the Nashville Predators logo in the middle and flags from various states hanging in the rafters.
There’s a pretty large seating section on the side opposite of where you come in. There are seven rows of seats that run the length of the ice surface with a small gap at center ice where there is a spot for a couple of picnic tables.
The bleaches are permanent hard plastic seats. Not the most comfortable seats in the world but they do the job. The seating area, along with the rest of the rink, is fairly warm so we were not uncomfortable as we sat there all weekend.
The access to Rink B is from the hallway near the locker room in Rink A.
There is a short hallway with vending machines and a locker room for officials before you get to the door leading in to the rink.
Rink B is actually the Nashville Predators practice facility. This is another NHL sized rink with banners of NHL teams hanging on the walls. There were frantic emails in the weeks leading up to the competition from the Local Organizing Committee about changes that would have to be made to the competitions if the Predators made the playoffs. They would need to keep this rink open for the Preds four hours a day which would cut in to practice times and some competition time. The Preds ultimately did not make the playoffs and the competition wasn’t affected.
The bleachers on this side area little weird and almost look like an after thought. They’re metal and wood and accessible from behind via a short set of stairs. There are foam pads taped over all the sharp angles on the backside of the bleachers because you actually have to walk behind them.
The seating itself is also weird. It’s not the proper height. It’s just wood planks but when I sat down, my knees were in my chest. We didn’t spend a lot of time in this rink. B had one practice session over here but his coach wasn’t available at the time so I kind of stood in the coaches area to give him some guideance. Sitting in the stands for a long period would have been uncomfortable.
There’s a concession stand in Rink A called JJ’s Cafe.
They have a lot of the typical concession stand type food. Popcorn, pretzels, pizza. But they also had some fruit cups and yogurt parfaits.
Honestly, we didn’t get much from the concession stand all weekend. We’d occasionally get drinks and I think there were a couple of soft pretzels that were bought but there just wasn’t much that interested anyone. We usually bring a snack bag to the rink with us and that seemed to hold everyone over until I could get away to get lunch.
Skate Nashville was a good competition for the kids. B had some struggles that he had to work through but he still came home with a medal in one event and got his first taste of competition in the free dance skating against kids much older and with higher levels than he has. Lots of lessons learned.
L had a great competition improving scores in two of her events and coming home with medals in all three events she competed in.
The Centennial Sportsplex is one of the nicer rinks we’ve been to. The layout is weird to us as we really never left the rink. Typically at competitions, we watch the kids, then go find a table outside in the lobby but at this rink, you stay in the rink pretty much the whole time. Everything you need is right there and it’s comfortable enough, you’re not itching to get out of there.
SW Michigan Dining 