Bemidji’s Ice Skating Rinks, Including New Downtown Site, Open to the Public

Every year, the City of Bemidji opens up several ice skating rinks to the public. Two of those locations, at City Park and Nymore Park, have been open for years, but this winter, the Parks and Recreation department opened up a third site as well at the Tourist information Center.

Each of the rinks is lit and open seven days a week. They’re available for use from 3:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. on weekdays and from noon to 8 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.

“Monday through Friday, they get flooded,” explained Bemidji Parks Superintendent Scott Schroeder, “Flooding is when we’ll go out, we scoop off all of the days’ before snow or the ice chunks from people skating on it. And we’ll go out there with a hose and just put a fresh skim of ice.”

The Nymore and City Park locations have both a pleasure rink and a hockey rink, while the Tourist Information Center site has just one small rink. And no worries if you don’t have any equipment:

“We do rent skates at City Park and the Tourist Information Center,” said Schroeder. “Also within the City Park’s warming center there is a concession stand in there. They sell everything from hot chocolate to pizza.”

And although the rinks are free and open to the public, the City of Bemidji still wants to preach safety to all who go.

“You know, when it’s 30 below, we’re not going to promote people to come be outside, right?” added Schroeder. “So outside of that, I mean, they’re obviously a giant positive for the community. I mean, they bring kids together. I know on Saturday there’s the youth hockey group is going to be at one of their rinks just doing practice, which is, it’s kind of neat.”

The rinks will remain open until the weather warms up enough to start melting the ice. In years past, they have stayed in use until the first week of March, so there should still be several weeks left of skating and hockey for all.