Post-Olympic glow lights up San Mateo’s ice rink

As one of two skating directors of the Nazareth Ice Oasis-San Mateo, Phaler said she has noticed an uptick in ice sports interest following the 2018 Winter Olympics, adding that rink staff recently fielded a question about where one can train for curling. But this year, Phaler’s felt the passion for ice time from skaters and hockey players loud and clear since the rink reopened Oct. 1, more than four years after it was shuttered in 2013.

“They still want more,” she said. “And it’s like, we don’t have more. There are only so many hours in a day and you can only do [these sports] on ice.”

Even a packed schedule from 6 a.m. to midnight doesn’t seem to satisfy the hundreds of athletes traveling from far and wide to practice at the rink, said Phaler. Located in San Mateo’s Bridgepointe Shopping Center, the rink’s reopening has been a beacon of hope for ice enthusiasts across the Bay Area, many of whom have been searching for a place to practice after the Belmont Iceland shuttered in 2016 and the San Mateo rink closed more than four years ago.

Phaler clearly remembers the devastation of the ice community when both rinks closed, sending skaters and hockey players across the Bay Area to find places to practice, or forcing others to quit the sports they loved. Having coached skaters at the San Mateo rink before it closed, she said seeing dozens of skaters come back to their old stomping grounds has been gratifying.

“To get it going, it’s fun,” she said. “It’s fun to see kids who used to skate here come back.”

For Belmont resident Dina Artzt, seeing eager children and adults fill the ice after some four and a half years has made the yearslong grassroots effort she and other members of the San Mateo community took on to prevent the shopping center’s owner from demolishing the facility and converting it into retail space worth their time.

The rink was shuttered in 2013 when the owner opted not to extend the prior operator’s lease and instead asked the city for permission to replace it with more retail space, offering the city $8 million at one point in exchange for removing the recreational requirement at the shopping center. Credited with allowing the shopping center to be redeveloped decades ago, the rink is called out for in the site’s master plan, which gave advocates and the city leverage.

Artzt admitted she wasn’t sure the community’s efforts to advocate for their rink’s reopening would be successful in the end, but was ecstatic and shocked when in March of 2017 the shopping center owner suddenly abandoned efforts to demolish the rink and agreed to reopen it.

“It’s been a year since we’ve known and I still can’t believe it,” she said.

Artzt, whose son played hockey there for years before it closed, said she has been stopping by the rink when she happens to pass by to see who’s enjoying it, noting that seeing children in an adaptive physical education class take to the ice in February was especially heart-warming.

The overwhelming support of the community was not a surprise for Mounir Kardosh, owner of the San Mateo-based development firm Nazareth Enterprises, which was selected as the rink’s operator in May. Having built multiple developments in San Mateo and successfully preserved the Nazareth Ice Oasis in Redwood City, Kardosh said his excitement in being selected as the San Mateo rink’s operator has been matched by the sight of high turnout for skating schools and full schedules for nightly hockey practices.

“For me, the most exciting part is the fact that it reopened and that we could be a service for the community,” he said. “I’m glad that we could step in and help.”

Though Kardosh has experience successfully operating the rink in Redwood City, he noted he spent more than double what he budgeted to reopen the rink because of much-needed but unanticipated improvements to the aging facilities. Repairs have included a new chilling system and scoreboard, as well as repairs to the facility’s wiring, plumbing, restrooms and locker rooms. But now that he’s a few months into the venture, Kardosh said he can report it is making money, and confirmed he has every intention of keeping both rinks open.

“These are not exactly profitable ventures,” he said. “At least we can be of service and we’re not losing a fortune doing it.”

Though Phaler admitted that keeping up with the rink’s packed public skates, weekend birthday parties and countless classes is a handful, she said she, skating director Kim Delli-Gatti and operator Hanna Hanhan wouldn’t have it any other way.

“That’s our main goal — being a part of the community,” she said.

Visit nazarethice.com to view the schedules for the Nazareth Ice Oasis-San Mateo and the Nazareth Ice Oasis in Redwood City.

anna@smdailyjournal.com

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