Skatium

Not a bad facility. Public hours are a bit limited on weekends but not too much traffic on ice. Nice mix of kids, singles and couples. Ice is fine.
If you borrow their skates… they’re some of the most painful ones I’ve tried. Not exactly sure why they feel so different because the pain around the ankles is almost excruciating. I was wincing on ice. Unfortunately there aren’t too many options in the area in the summer, but it still hasn’t gotten better.

Bundles of fun here. I have no clue on how to ice skate and the staff here were so friendly in helping me. Because we came near to closing, we got in free (hour of skating). Call ahead because the hours changes weekly.

Yesterday we had my son’s 8^th birthday party at the Skatium. It was his choice because he liked doing the free skate so much that he wanted all his friends to try it.
The package included pizza and drinks at the café, we brought our own cake, and paid a tad extra to have a lesson for the boys (only 4 of the 12 had skated before). Logan says…“It was fun. It was amazing. Some kids thought it was hard but everyone was excited. There were chairs [meaning support devices] if they needed them. We all played bubble hockey first. My mom & dad made us wear helmets. That was the only thing I didn’t like.” In our defense, some kids may have not needed helmets, but some of their parents would have been nervous and it’s better safe than sorry. Since the Skatium offers helmets, we took them up on it. Besides the 12 second graders, we also had 1 older brother (4^th grade) and 2 younger brothers (pre-​K). They all loved it. Lots are hoping to go again. Logan suddenly thinks he skates well enough to play ice hockey. It was a cool, unique birthday experience.

«my legs are sore, my ankle has a boo-​boo and it’s a good thing i checked my ego at the door, else it surely would’ve been bruised!»
that’s how i described my AWESOME skatium visit this past winter to a friend. the skatium is a haverford township landmark, and, according to the facebook ‘save the skatium’ group page, it’s apparently in danger of destruction. the page asks members to share their personal experiences over the years in an effort to help sway the commissioner’s office to leave this local legend intact. it’s taken me nearly 5 years of living in h-​town to finally create a memory of my own, and now i, too, am behind the cause of saving the skatium.
after all, what a shame it would be to lose the location where the boy and i celebrated a special milestone together. restaurants, bars… yeah, we like those, too, but we’re kids at heart so we thought we’d give skating a go for a fun change of pace. tho it was technically neither of our first times, it had been so long for us both that it may as well have been. we were apprehensive, but excited, and after lacing up, we hit the ice.
noticing our hesitation, a friendly father advised us to start off by standing on your stronger leg and pushing off with the other (thanks!)…and we were off. me, holding on to his arm for dear life; him, staying amazingly upright despite my having attached myself to his side.
one lap down, and i let go of his arm… instead latching on to one of many plastic chairs they put out for the KIDS! don’t laugh. ok… laugh — we sure as hell did! i finally ditched my training wheels, and we alternated laps of skating solo (scary!) and holding hands (hellooo, date nite!), while high-​fiving the other first timers (so what if they were one third our age?) and trying our darndest not to fall (success!) until open skate was over and it was time to leave… but not before the boy tried his hand at one of the requisite claw machine games where he won me a stuffed dog — aw :)
my soreness and scrapes have since faded, but the memory of that nite will last a lifetime. hopefully the skatium stays around just as long.