Arctic Ice Arena
10700 160th StreetThree new rinks in three weeks.
We had three competitions in three weeks in three different cities. It was a hectic month.
We started the month with a one day competition at Arctic Edge Ice Arena in Canton. The following weekend we were at the Centennial Sportsplex in Nashville, TN. This past weekend, we moved on to Artic Ice Arena in Orland Park, IL.
J and the kids left Wednesday night to head to Orland Park but I still had to work on Thursday. My plan was to join them for B’s last skate on Thursday night but I literally walked in to the arena as they were announcing his score. I got screwed over by traffic on I-294.
Anyway.
Artic Ice Arena is on 160th Street near 108th Avenue in Orland Park. As I found on my way rushing to the arena to try and catch B skate, there is no sign at 108th Avenue pointing you towards the arena. I missed it an my GPS got all sorts of messed up. 160th Street is a dead end street so there’s no way come in from the other side. The road leads to a cul-de-sac that then transitions into a couple of large parking lots. The building opened in 1995 and was bought by a hockey parent in 2000. That hockey parent was the dad of a guy who would eventually go on to play for the Chicago Wolves.
Having the Ladybug competition at this rink is a massive upgrade from the Homewood-Flossmoor Ice Arena where we’ve gone for this competition the last few years. I complained a lot about parking there because there wasn’t much and they wanted us to park across the street at the golf course….then dodge five lanes of 50 MPH traffic to get to the rink. This rink doesn’t have that problem.
It’s also huge. The lobby is massive. There is so much space. Something we had none of at the H-F rink. There was no seating outside of the rink and no place to do hair and make up or just relax in a semi-warm space. This rink has so much space that even with the vendors, there was plenty of room. There could have been more tables but it worked out alright.
The main information desk and skate rental is all the way in the back of the lobby.
There are three rinks inside this arena and all three were being used all weekend. Two of them were competition rinks and the third was practice ice.
The main rink and the first rink as you walk in to the facility is Championship Rink.
You come in to all the rinks at ice level. The team benches are on the far side of the rink and there is a balcony with tables from the Original Six Bar (we’ll get to that) overlooking the rink. The scoreboard hangs from the ceiling in the middle giving this rink the feel of a stadium.
The seating is only a couple of rows but they have stadium style seating in stead of benches.
It’s interesting because this has the feel of a main rink but the seating here is very limited compared to the other two rinks. The stadium seating is all plastic and it feels kind of flimsy. It’s better than sitting on a bench all day but it’s an interesting choice.
The rink we spent most of our weekend in is the NHL Rink.
Again, you come in at rink level to find a large seating area off to the left. You have to go up ten steps which is nice because it gives you a view above the boards.
The seats in this rink are all bench seating but there is quite a bit of it. We bring a pretty big crowd with us to these things and the whole middle section of the rink was pretty full.
The rink itself is an NHL size sheet of ice with the benches on the far side of the arena. I had to look at those advertisements for Nancy’s Pizza all weekend which made me really hungry.
There are several locker rooms around the space including some right underneath the bleachers. There are a few more on the end of the rink near the entry doors.
The third rink was our practice ice for the weekend. They call it Euro Rink.
I couldn’t figure out the size of this ice sheet. I was wondering since they call it “Euro Rink” if it was an Olympic size sheet but it was hard to tell standing at ice level. This also looks like the figure skating rink as they have banners for their seniors.
Typically, if a facility has an Olympic rink, they give it to the figure skaters (Biggby Coffee Ice Cube – Ann Arbor is this way) because hockey teams don’t like the bigger rink. There’s nothing on their website or online about the size of the rinks so I never did figure it out.
The seating in this rink is the same as NHL Rink but it’s blue instead of read. You still have to climb stairs to get to the seating gallery.
It also has bench seating running the length of the ice surface.
The other interesting space in this facility is a synthetic ice surface down a hallway just before you enter NHL Rink. This was used as a dry land warm area for the weekend and it was nice to have a place for the kids to warm up that wasn’t in the lobby trying to avoid people.
Moving on to food. I didn’t eat here all weekend. I had plans to but my parents wanted to leave the rink for a little while so we went out for lunch on Friday.
There are two ways to get food at Arctic Ice Arena. The first is the concession stand. It’s in the back of the lobby area near the skate rental. It’s just a small window kind of tucked in to the wall between things.
They have a pretty big variety of food but it’s all pretty standard concession stand fare. I know the kids got some popcorn over the weekend and of course, Icees. They had breakfast sandwiches on Saturday morning. I saw a few people with those and it was really tempting but I never got out of my seat to go get one.
The other option is the one I was planning on taking advantage of. The Original Six Bar & Grill has an entrance next to Championship Rink. It’s a set of stairs that takes you up to the bar. My mom ate there on Thursday when I wasn’t there so she didn’t really want to eat there again on Friday. I never ended up going upstairs to grab food or a drink which kind of disappoints me. I thought about eating lunch there on Saturday before heading back to Kalamazoo but I had something else I wanted to do (I’ll get to that). They have a pretty good looking pub food menu. Hopefully we’re back at this rink next year for this competition. I’ll make sure I grab something to eat from there then.
I really hope Ladybug stays at this arena. Homewood-Flossmoor Ice Arena is a good facility but it’s not a good competition facility. There’s not enough space. This arena is huge and got great reviews from our club. It was nice being able to spread out and be comfortable. We do Solo Dance so it’s not a one and done thing like it is for the freestyle skaters. With two kids competing in two events with two segments each, we’re there sometimes 8-10 hours. Arctic Ice Arena is a great facility. Can’t wait to go back.
SW Michigan Dining 