Volunteers, YMCA board members, and members of the Waldoboro Fire Department worked together the morning of Dec. 29 to install and fill the temporary ice rink on the tennis courts at the Waldoboro branch of the Central Lincoln County YMCA.
The ice skating rink will be the second program offered at the Waldoboro location, which is still undergoing renovations, according to CLC YMCA Executive Director Craig Wilson.
The Waldoboro branch, which will be the Gay and Stan and Anne Bailey Recreational Center, has thus far only offered an outdoor tennis program because of the repairs being made to the building, Wilson said.
The rink will only be open for select hours, which will be posted on the CLC-YMCA website, Wilson said. Lights will be installed in a couple of weeks, he added.
Wilson said he’s hoping to run ice skating and hockey clinics on the rink, but it depends on the weather.
“This week is supposed to be real cold so I think we timed it perfectly” to fill the rink, Wilson said.
The 72 foot wide by 84 foot long rink is of the Nice Rink brand, chosen for the quality and price, Wilson said.
“It’s just a good package that they sell,” with a thicker liner and some parts made of plastic instead of particle board, Wilson said.
Though it was everyone’s first time in assembling a rink, the job only took two and a half hours, Wilson said.
“It would’ve taken days for us to do this job if it wasn’t for the volunteers,” he said.
Waldoboro Deputy Fire Chief Dale Smith said the department would fill the rink 1000 gallons at a time by filling up a truck at the fire station. Smith expected the filling to take around 11 or 12 trips, he said.
The fire department was helping out as a “good payback gesture” for the YMCA letting the department use the former A.D. Gray Middle School building for their haunted house at Halloween, Smith said.
For more information about the Central Lincoln County YMCA, visit www.clcymca.org.