Summer Ice
By kathleen James
Photography by lee Krohn
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When the ice melts and the indoor soccer season starts at Riley Rink in Manchester each March, James and Kennedy Moore come down with a serious case of the No More Hockey Blues. The brothers, both of whom attend the Dorset School, are so passionate about hockey that their moods ebb and flow with the indoor ice. "When they start making the ice in October, James can’t sleep," says their mom, Debbie. "He just gets so excited when he thinks about it starting to freeze. And the boys are extremely sad on meltdown day in March."
Luckily, the brothers Moore don’t suffer for long. Since 2005, Riley Rink has offered a summer ice program in July and August, with national-caliber hockey camps that attract skaters from across the country, plus day camps for local kids, public skates, private parties and more. "Each year, the program has grown," says executive director Susan Marmer. "And it’s a great way to cool off on a hot summer day."
In the early 1990s, local business leader Susan Sargent founded an exploratory group called Friends of Hockey. The goal: to find land, raise money and build a community skating facility for Manchester, Dorset and the surrounding towns. At the time, local hockey players and figure skaters had to make do with pond ice or commute; the Northshire Hockey Association, for example, traveled to a rink in North Adams, Massachusetts, for practice and play games.
Joined by founding board members including Joe Miles, Perk Perkins, Paul Schwindt and Lee Romano, Sargent spent five years making the dream come true. Riley Rink at Hunter Park-a 35,000-square-foot facility with an Olympic-sized skating rink-opened on land formerly used as a gravel pit in the fall of 1997.
In its first year, the rink hosted only a six-month ice-skating season. The following year, the board added indoor soccer and field hockey, played on artificial turf in the late spring "shoulder season." By summer 2000, looking to expand its programs year-round, Riley Rink had launched a high-profile summer concert series, underwritten by local philanthropist Barbara Riley Levin, that brought A-list musicians like Sheryl Crow, Willie Nelson and Ray Charles to town. Though popular and well attended, the series never became financially self-sustaining.
Marmer, who had been an active volunteer and rink parent from the get-go, was hired as executive director at Riley Rink in August 2004-four days before the classic rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd took the stage as the last-ever summer show. Her first significant challenge was to help the board decide how to use the rink in summer without the music series. "We had the indoor turf up and running for the shoulder seasons, and event rentals have always been part of the business plan," says Marmer, describing trade shows like the Vermont Antique Dealers’ Association and the Art of Craft. "We also had a feasibility study conducted; the study indicated it would actually cost more to mothball the place in summer than it would cost to put in summer ice."
