Skating Rink

Skating Rink 

a section of level ice surface designed for skating and sledding. There are two basic types: rinks intended for sports use and for general public use. Sports rinks are used for lessons, speed skating and sledding matches, figure skating, ana ice hockey. General-purpose rinks are places for recreation, games, and fun. There are three types of rinks in terms of ice preparation: natural (which are constructed on natural bodies of water during winter), poured-on (arranged on a natural or artificial base, most frequently in sports arenas, stadiums, or asphalt-paved areas), and artificial (created with the aid of special refrigerating installations).

Sports skating rinks are popular primarily in countries withlong winters, particularly the Scandinavian countries, the USSR, the Netherlands, Canada, and the USA. In 1971 there wereapproximately 18, 000 skating rinks in the USSR, including closeto 70 artificial ones. During the 1950’s and 1960’s artificial sportsskating rinks were constructed in many of the major cities ofEurope, Canada, and the USA. The most famous ones for speedskating are in Grenoble (France), Inzell (FRG), Goteborg (Swe-den), Deventer (Netherlands), Berlin (GDR), Budapest (Hun-gary), and Sverdlovsk (USSR); and for ice hockey and figureskating, in Moscow (at the Lenin Central Stadium), Leningrad(the Iubileinyi), Kiev, and Minsk (USSR), Prague (the Czecho-slovak SSR), Stockholm (Sweden), Zurich (Switzerland), Mon-treal and Toronto (Canada), and Sapporo (Japan). The mostpopular high-mountain skating rinks are located in Davos (Swit-zerland), Cortina d’Ampezzo (Italy), Inzell (FRG), and Medeo(USSR).

A. P. GALLI and V. V. LYSENKO