For anyone who grew up in Genesee County, you may recall those fun weekend nights of pulling on a pair of roller skates and gliding around the floor of Skate 98 as a DJ blasted dance and rock tunes and the dimmed atmosphere was a great canvas for colored scrolling lights.
If you’re yearning for some of those fun nostalgic times — and decent exercise to boot — or looking to build some new memories, management at the McCarthy Ice Arena has brought back public roller and inline skating from 7 to 9 p.m. every Friday.
And for only $5 a person, rink Manager Kati Murray says.
“We’re trying to get people in here to skate for a couple of hours,” she said to The Batavian Friday afternoon. “We do not have rentals, but we’re in the process of getting them, we might rent them out from a place. We have music, just like we do for the ice skating.”
The Batavian asked if the place does anything with lighting, and Murray said, “Funny you ask that.”
“We’re in the process of putting up lights that flash, we’re putting them up for next Friday,” she said. “We’ll have flashing lights and a black light, and we’re getting updated music.”
Skaters will get the entire floor to bop along to tunes, in between taking breaks for a snack from the concession stand. This is the second week of public skating, and Murray believes it will take some time for people to catch on that the rink is open for this activity.
There are also two nights of floor hockey: Tuesdays have five adult teams already signed up, and Wednesdays are offering pickup teams for kids 14 and under from 5 to 6:30 p.m. and one for adults 7 to 8:30 p.m. Those are just beginning, and anyone interested in joining can just show up at the designated time.
The cost for Wednesday’s teams is $10 a person, and goalies are free. For more information about any of the teams, email adam@mccarthyicearena.com.
There’s still time to dig out and dust off those rollerblades from the garage, and head out to the ice arena on Evans Street, Batavia. For more information, go to McCarthy Ice Arena. https://www.mccarthyicearena.com/ or call 585-250-4040.
Submitted photos of rollerskating at the David M. McCarthy Memorial Ice Arena in Batavia, top, and playing floor hockey, above.
