Spokane ice ribbon a pleasant surprise

As we enter the holiday season with its many events and activities, it can be tough to decide what to do (especially if you are hanging out with the family). In an effort to possibly help with this decision, I’d like to tell you about my latest experience with Spokane Riverfront Park’s newest attraction — the ice ribbon.

This new addition to the former home of Expo ‘74 is the first of many new additions coming to the historic part of our closest major city.

I didn’t attend the Worlds Fair myself (wasn’t even close to being born yet), but my dad did and he said it was a great time (I especially liked the part where the canopy for the pavilion kept getting blown off into the river by the wind).

Even though I didn’t see Riverfront Park in its prime, the area is still important to me since I spent roughly four years playing ice hockey at the rink in front of the IMAX.

So if you are like me (not necessarily a good thing in some ways), and you follow or have ‘liked’ many of the region’s news outlets on social media, you have heard a lot about the area’s revitalization project and the daily coverage the ice ribbon received in the weeks leading up to its grand opening. From in-depth interviews with its designers to aerial drone footage, this thing was covered in every possible way.

When I read the details on the renovation and the ice ribbon, I had mixed feelings. On one hand, Riverfront (the ice rink/IMAX area in particular) had certainly seen better days and I was happy that it was finally going to get some attention. The base of the pavilion was horribly aged and it was apparent by the decor that the place had not seen any major improvements in many years. The ice rink in particular was definitely the product of a different era and the maintenance equipment for it (the Zamboni, for instance) was always breaking down. Suffice to say, we had a lot of late practices and games.

As a hockey player though, I was saddened to hear that the new ice ribbon was to replace the old rink. The ribbon itself can simply be described as a frozen walking path with an attached square piece of ice for people to take it easy in. This is not a rink you can play hockey in, it is solely made for skating around. Even though I was a little disgruntled, I understood the reasoning behind it and still thought it was a neat idea.

After a little research, it appears that the Spokane ice ribbon is among the only ones in the country (Chicago has one as well).

With my curiosity perked, I decided to take my girlfriend there last weekend for our anniversary (happy one year, babe!) and it turned out to be a really fun and unique experience.

I won’t lie, part of me was expecting to be underwhelmed. As a North Idaho boy that isn’t big on crowds and doesn’t have a ton of patience waiting in lines (my girlfriend would attest to that last one), I envisioned waiting in line for hours just to try the thing out. Thankfully though, that didn’t happen.

The facility provides skate rental and you buy admission to skate for an hour­­— fairly standard stuff at any ice rink. Once we got on the ribbon, I experienced something new that I never had before in the nearly 20 years of playing hockey and skating on lakes­­— ice skating up and down hill. As you make your way along the slightly curvy 16 feet wide and 650 feet long ribbon, the path takes the skater up and down slight elevations, allowing you to pick up some speed on the down hill slopes. Now these highs and lows of the path are not extreme by any means, but it’s enough for someone who has been skating most of his life to get excited about (considering I’ve only ever skated on flat surfaces). On top of this, the city has done a great job sprucing the place up for the holidays by hanging lots of lights, dressing up a giant Christmas tree, and lighting a giant menorah next to the ribbon. Also, since its Spokane, Bing Crosby’s holiday hits can be heard over the speaker system. The small pond-like area attached to the ribbon was a nice touch too, giving skaters a place to work on technique or just take some selfies with friends and not get in the way of skaters on the ribbon.

The only drawbacks I noticed were the ribbon being a bit shorter than I expected (the drone footage made it look much longer) and the quality of the ice degrading fairly quick if there are a lot of skaters on it, but these were minor problems. Overall it was an enjoyable night out and I would recommend it as a great date night or simply something fun to try out at least once. We have several events going on this holiday season right here in the Silver Valley and I encourage you to check them out! But if you make a trip to the big city this winter season and are looking for something new to do, the ice ribbon is definitely worth a go.