Skating with children
CSA-approved helmets are highly recommended for all skaters, and children seven and under must be actively supervised by someone 14 or older.
Source checked · · Official source
A park rink since the winter of 1926, on land the city expropriated from the Sparks estate in 1911
For the latest skating dates, check the rink’s official information.
Laroche Park's rink dates to the winter of 1926, when Ottawa's 19th skating rink, and the park's first city-run one, opened beside a new baseball diamond. The playground itself had opened on June 19, 1926, with several hundred children in attendance. The ground was Nepean Township lot 37, acquired by Nicholas Sparks in 1849, and the city expropriated nine acres of the Sparks estate in July 1911. By 1925 the site was Stonehurst Dump, and a push to grade it for an urgently needed playground gave the neighbourhood Laroche Park, a name council approved.
Skaters shared the park with baseball, hockey and lacrosse, and the first Laroche community association, formed in 1932, set up a Minor Hockey Association. In 1946 the City added lights and changing huts for skaters and hockey players. The community centre building went up in the early 1950s, replacing the tiny original wood-frame dressing room at the southeast corner of Stonehurst and Burnside.
Winter carnivals, summer sports days and picnics filled the years that followed, and the best-attended event in the park's history drew more than 3,500 people to the Laroche Park winter carnival in February 1951. As of 2015 the Mechanicsville Community Association manages the park, and Westfest moved from the streets of Westboro to the fields of Laroche Park for its 2016 edition.
Admission, rentals and arrival details, researched from official rink information. Source checks stay current for 30 days.
CSA-approved helmets are highly recommended for all skaters, and children seven and under must be actively supervised by someone 14 or older.
Source checked · · Official source
People in wheelchairs must wear a CSA-approved helmet on the ice, and wheels must be cleaned of sand and salt first; E-Z gliders are the only skating aid allowed.
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The City of Ottawa's outdoor-rink inventory lists this rink with boards, permanent lights and a fieldhouse.
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Follow the capacity limits posted on site, and do not go on the ice when the rink is at capacity.
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A source check records what the rink published on that date. Session-specific booking details take precedence.