Skating Fridays

Rink #46 – Great Park Ice

A few short weeks ago, I traveled to Orange County (California) for work. I took an early flight from the East Coast and landed shortly after lunchtime in California. I was going to meet my childhood best friend later that day, so I thought it would be fun to practice at a new rink.

With my handy dandy skating backpack in tow (a Rink Rabbit, which is awesome, by the way – and I am NOT getting paid to say this), I took an Uber to Great Park Ice in Irvine. I knew that there were several well-known coaches out there, but I did not expect to see the ones that I did!

While I was waiting to hop onto the 2pm session, I snuck onto the ice surface with the elite skaters. Now one beautiful thing about this facility was that the ice sessions were broken out by level. And since this facility had FOUR ice surfaces (!!!!), it wasn’t too crowded.

I watched the high level skaters and saw a redheaded coach in the hockey box. Turns out it was none other than Sean Rabbitt, who is a skater I adore and admire. I didn’t muster up the courage to speak to him, but he was also teaching a lesson.

I also saw a few other notable faces, including Jessica Calalang and Rafael Arutunian! I had to do a double take on Raf, because he was wearing a “China” jacket. I asked one of the adult skaters that I met on my session if that was Raf that I saw, and she confirmed it.

I ended up only having 4 skaters on my session, which was amazing! The adult skater I met also pointed out that Denis Petrov was coaching on our ice. It was amazing seeing so many famous faces.

Next week, I have a little something special to share about how I spent the next 30 minutes after my practice time. 🙂

Rink #46… check!