Powderhorn Park Outdoor Rink

Public skating at Powderhorn Park Outdoor Rink: the next 7 days

Currently out of season The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board's ice rink page still reads "Ice rinks closed for the season on February 15, 2026" and gives no 2026-27 opening date. Its outdoor rinks are natural ice, not refrigerated, so the Board builds and floods them once the weather has stayed below freezing for about ten days; when open, all rinks are lit daily 4:30-9 pm. The Park Board lists Powderhorn Park among its outdoor rinks, for general skating (rink type G on its 2025-26 flyer). Official schedule update

Powderhorn Lake skating, a park board rink since 1891 and home of national speed skating

The Minneapolis park board established a skating rink on Powderhorn Lake in 1891, one of only five rinks it maintained, and built a first shelter for skaters in 1900, enlarged in 1902. The lake's smaller basin later became home to a speed skating track that hosted national championships and Olympic trials in the 1930s. Attendance at the 1934 national championship was estimated conservatively at 50,000 over two days.

The Olympic trials returned in 1947, and four of the nine skaters who won spots on the U.S. team were from Powderhorn Park; one of them, Ken Bartholomew, won a silver medal at the 1948 Winter Olympics. The track moved to Lake Harriet in the early 1960s, reopened at Powderhorn in 1990 and shifted to Armatage Park in 1999 as an experiment.

In 1963 the hockey rink was moved off the lake, though general skating stayed on it, and a recreation center replaced the old shelter beside the lake in 1971-72.

Before you head out.

Admission, rentals and arrival details, researched from official rink information. Source checks stay current for 30 days.

A source check records what the rink published on that date. Session-specific booking details take precedence.