I just blogged about KitsFest, a three day long community sporting event that takes place on Kits Beach August 12-14. When mentioning the event highlights, I did indeed use the terms ‘beach‘ and ‘ice hockey‘ in the same sentence, tossed casually in among commonplace sports like basketball and volleyball. But beaches go with balmy summer weather. And sand. So why would anyone don ice skates?
I’ll tell you why. Because some brilliant nutter out there crated a silicone ‘ice-simulating’ rink, allowing children in tropical, equatorial, sweat-your-tuckus-off zones to experience the joy of ice skating minus the ice. The visionaries behind KitsFest know how much this town loves hockey, so they brought a silicone rink all the way to Kits Beach for a summer sports tournament.
Interlocking plastic panels form the surface upon which the the silicone ‘ice’ rests
Where: The beach hockey rink will be next to the basketball courts and it’s roughly one third of the size of a real rink.
How: It’s built using interlocking plastic panels. The plastic panels will then be covered with a high-tech goo or ‘synthetic ice skating surface with a scientifically engineered molecular structure’ that will allow skaters to glide just as smoothly as on real ice.
Video: Check out this video of Canadians on synthetic ice .
Beach Ice Hockey at KitsFest: There will be a hockey tournament as well as public skating and skate rental available, 9:ooam-8:00pm Friday through Sunday at Kits Beach. 12 Teams will participate in the Beach Ice Hockey tournament, with 3 on 3 play, plus goalie, for 3 periods of action.
Grab your skates and give it a whirl. Or just go gawk. That’s fun too.
Last modified: August 24, 2011
