A Day to Fly
A Zamboni resurfaces the ice at Great Park Ice
Bracingly cold? It was not.
But shiver-inducing goosebumps thanks to watching the skaters? You bet.
As a native Southern Californian, I used to find the idea of year-round ice skating laughable. My thoughts were relegated to the times in December when Universal CityWalk brought out the rink for locals to lean into the holiday vibe. But after watching the 2026 Milano-Cortina Olympics, and hearing about an Olympic training center— at Great Park Ice—the prospect became a much more serious and inspiring pursuit.
As a kid, I grew up in Long Beach—a hop, skip, and maybe—if I dare say—a double axel away from Paramount Iceland. I even took individual ice-skating lessons there with a bronze medalist whose name, I confess, I have forgotten. Perhaps that is for the best, because she told me: “Kelsey, you will never be an ice skater. Give it up.” Dreams shattered? Probably. But I was five, I found a new dream. The thing is, in teaching me to give up, she taught me to never give up again. Go figure…skate. (I know, I know—terrible pun!)
In truth, learning not to ice-skate on the infamous rink where the Zamboni was invented shaped me for life. I would become interested in the sport forever, as a spectator of course! I knew I would always be watching it on television during the Olympics or other major championships, but never in person. Sure, I’d heard of the training center in Lake Arrowhead called Ice Castle, but that was a closed rink for the super-elite. You couldn’t go and watch them…
Fast forward to 2019. Great Park Ice was completed. What? Where was I? Well, I do live in Los Angeles, and the facility is in Orange County. But there was much more to my oversight than a few miles of separation on Interstate 5. Great Park Ice had replaced El Toro. The thing is, I’d never heard about the ‘ice’ part. Strange but true. As I remember it, they told us a ‘great park’ was being developed. A plain ole’park? Why? This isn’t Central Park New York; this is Irvine. How great could it be? And what was taken away was even greater—
The site of Great Park Ice was being raised on the former Marine Corps Air Station at El Toro. It was aviation history in the flesh. Just like the death of the Spruce Goose hangar in Playa Vista, our Southern California aviation history was becoming exactly that: history. At one time, the El Toro hangars were the largest wooden structures in THE WORLD! These 17-story-tall behemoths were beautiful to admire.
So, to say that I didn’t give the 'Great Park' another minute of my time was totally true.
Fast forward to 2026, Johnny Weir mentions during the broadcast that the ice skater performing trains at something called Great Park Ice & FivePoint Arena in Irvine—
What. The. WHAT?
I instantly looked it up. It was real. And the best part? Anyone can visit it. So, I did. The visit to Great Park Ice was bittersweet. Seeing the complex in the flesh wasn’t exactly as cool as seeing F-18 Hornets take off from the El Toro hangars—it was better. Because much like those F-18s…they fly! I had zero clue that I could come this close to the legends of the ice. I had always thought, it’s better on TV anyway. But let me tell you straight up—it sucks on TV! There is nothing like the sound of the ice or the look on the faces—concentration, worry, determination and sometimes, just plain fun. If you want to spend a day seeing the most interesting thing in THE WORLD, go to Great Park Ice. You’ll get exactly what I mean.
Oh, and if you happen to spot me rink-side, don’t be surprised. Between the coffee and the cold, I am hard at work on my next project: a novel set in the dynamic world of figure skating.