Go for a skate at Ottertail’s outdoor skating rink
By: Heather Rule
Check out the new outdoor community skating rink in Ottertail!
The skating rink was supposed to be open during the 2023-24 winter, but the warmer temperatures weren’t friendly to maintaining ice. It’s still been a good addition to the Thumper Pond area in Ottertail for the 2024-25 season.
“It’s beautiful,” said Ottertail mayor Ron Grobeck.
The skating rink and warming house are located right at Thumper Pond. The ice rink – 203 feet long and about 80 feet wide – is in the back parking lot at Thumper Pond. The rink has CCA-treated, four-foot boards. Skaters can park near the rink, then head to the warming house right next to the ice to put on their skates and leave their shoes inside while they hit the ice, walking on a rubber mat from the warming house to the ice to keep their skates in tip-top shape. There’s even a hockey net for anyone wanting to practice shooting pucks.
The 10-by-16 feet storage shed converted into a warming house includes bench seating for skaters to put on their skates. Having the warming house is a really important addition so that people can go right from their street shoes to skates, and then go skating. Without the warming house, they’d have to put their skates on outside or perhaps in their vehicles.
The rink was an idea several years in the making but was put on the back-burner until recently, when Thumper Pond stepped in to host the space for the rink, taking the burden off the city.
Two non-profit groups – the Ottertail Rod and Gun Club, and the Ottertail Lions club – worked together to make the skating rink and warming house project possible. The city found out about the interest in an outdoor skating rink a few years ago when the city did a study, according to Grobeck.
Having the rink at Thumper Pond creates yet another activity at the facility that people can participate in during the winter. The staff there will also maintain the ice with special Zamboni.
“We’re thinking it’s going to be a really, really good long-term amenity for the city of Ottertail, for people to come and do some outdoor skating,” Grobeck said.
