Outdoor ice rinks are social hubs in Minnesota's long, dark winters. Some are disappearing.

School was out and ice skating was in at Maple Grove's outdoor Central Park rink.

"I like to skate because I like to go fast," said Camille Boucher, 4. Snowsuited up, she stomped her hockey skates quickly on the ice Monday to illustrate the point.

The place was packed. Some skated close to the rails, attempting to stay upright. Others darted through the crowd. A kid hit the ice and laughed it off. Families brought their out-of-town loved ones, and friends caught up as they made laps on the winding skate path. It could have been a postcard for Minnesota.

But with warmer winters, rising maintenance costs and changing recreation habits, some outdoor community rinks are under threat as Twin Cities-area parks workers struggle to keep ice in skating form. And that, some researchers say, could melt some of the social fabric of a cold, dark season.

Free community ice rinks are a staple in cold-weather cities, and while they may be fun, they're not frivolous, said Mervyn Horgan, an associate professor at the University of Guelph in Ontario who studies the social life of public places, including ice rinks, which bring social benefits as well as physical ones.

"It's a real space of joy," Horgan said. "It's really the only place, in the winter, where you encounter people just in the outdoors engaged in kind of free leisure activities and having fun together."

In November, the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board recommended closing four neighborhood ice rinks in the coming years, citing climate change and cost.

Other metro cities have closed rinks or struggle to keep them open amid winter heat waves.

Rinks have their own rules

Patricia Chiu grew up skating on indoor rinks in Hong Kong. Now living in Plymouth, she brings her kids Gabby, 5, and Elias, 4, to the Maple Grove rink about once a week in the winter because the family loves the outdoor ice atmosphere.

"It's so special and you don't really see it everywhere," Chiu said.

Outdoor rinks were a revelation to Horgan, who grew up in Ireland. Not only were they a rare public recreation spot available in the cold winters, they seemed to somehow thaw off-ice social norms and hierarchies.

Realizing there was little research on use of rinks beyond hockey, Horgan and his colleagues spent 100 hours observing people at free, outdoor pleasure ice skating rinks in Ontario.

Overall, they found a diverse array of people shared rinks peaceably and playfully, creating a space for strangers to interact and even help each other.

Take the skates themselves. Novice skaters treat them like shoes, Horgan said, not realizing they must be tied tighter to prevent bent ankles.

"That provides an opportunity for more seasoned skaters to say, 'Hey buddy, you gotta tighten up your laces,'" Horgan said. "The skate itself becomes kind of a lubricant of sociability."

Researchers also observed an egalitarian aspect to community rinks: Even with a mix of highly skilled and new skaters, nobody monopolized the space.

"If you're the most skilled, sure you look flashy and whatever, but you don't have ownership over the rink," Horgan said. That contrasted with research on hockey rinks, which found they could be mostly white, male-dominated and hierarchical based on skill.

Sometimes, outdoor pleasure rinks even invert social hierarchies, Horgan said, recounting a time he fell.

"A kid just comes up to me and says, 'Mister, are you all OK?' He put his hand out to help me," Horgan said. "I'm an adult, I'm supposed to assist the child if they're in trouble, right?"

There's a permission to fail associated with ice skating, too, the researchers found. Falling is part of the fun.

Natural ice and climate change

Not every city has facilities like Maple Grove's — on a refrigerated outdoor surface and tended by a Zamboni — that can stay open even in unseasonably warm winters.

The city also operates roughly a dozen natural ice rinks at seven locations, which the city has been reducing in recent years, said Chuck Stifter, Maple Grove parks and recreation director. Part of it's the weather, part of it's the cost, and part of it's that some rinks aren't getting used as much as others, he said.

"We're trying to get a little bit more quality over quantity," Stifter said.

Minneapolis operates 43 rinks at 20 sites, said Jeremy Barrick, assistant superintendent of environmental stewardship for Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board.

This year, the rinks on Powderhorn Lake and at north Minneapolis' Webber Park won't open. Barrick said it's hard to maintain consistent ice without staffing up on spotters.

Parks staff considered the cost of renting warming trailers and bringing in soil to level land under rinks in deciding to phase out others, he said. Minneapolis does not have refrigerated outdoor rinks.

St. Paul's three refrigerated outdoor rinks were popular last year when it was a struggle to open natural ice rinks. In order to make ice for skating, St. Paul parks workers and volunteers have to flood rinks 10 to 15 times just to cover the ground, letting it freeze in layers, said Mike Whaley, citywide programs supervisor for St. Paul Parks and Recreation. And then there's flooding to maintain the ice.

St. Paul, too, has reduced its number of rinks slightly in recent years.

"We also need to make decisions regarding what is the outlook?" Whaley said, noting the need to balance environmental resources and recreation. "Is it worth it to use all this water and staffing to gain one week of skating?"

Richfield operates three natural outdoor ice rinks with warming houses, one in each city ward, and a few smaller rinks, which Recreation Services Director Karl Huemiller characterized as important for building community.

"Small rinks and small hockey areas are really important for creating a pipeline to get people to go skating and do figure skating or hockey," he said.

But the city is also considering ways to use space year-round. Recently, it converted the Taft Park rink, when had mainly been used for boot hockey and broomball, to a bike park.

"We saw it as an opportunity to take something that's used maybe six weeks a year and turn it into something that can be used year-round," he said, with the popularity of winter biking. "If we can find other activities that are going to still be around as the climate changes, that's really important too."

With an earlier freeze this year than last, things were looking up mid-December for cities' natural ice rinks.

"That's the biggest thing you hear from transplants or even people who grew up here is, 'Oh, I just kind of hunker down in my house all winter,'" Huemiller said. "If we provide opportunities for them to get outside and do things outside, it'll both strengthen community but also help people out with their mental health, with their physical activity, and all of that."