Hamilton Community Center & Ice Arena offers ice skating and indoor family fun
COLUMBUS, Ind. (WISH) — The Hamilton Community Center & Ice Arena is a year-round facility in Columbus, Ind., that has been helping families enjoy indoor fun for decades.
Carleen Fry, the arena’s manager, says the center offers people of all ages to have fun on the ice.
“From two years old to 90 years old they skate,” Fry said. “It’s just a unique part of Columbus, Indiana. A lot of towns this size don’t have an ice arena and we’re very lucky to have this.”
People have been enjoying the center since as early as 1958. The building was build by the Hamilton Cosco Foundation and was donated to the Parks and Recreation Department. In 1976, the arena was enclosed for visitors to enjoy year-round. In 2015, they decided to upgrade the building with some major renovations so it could keep families of skaters attracted and coming through its doors.
These days, if you drop by the ice arena you may run into some professionals like 10-year-old Sasha Luhur. She’s a figure skater who travels an hour from Bloomington, Indiana to train.
“It’s the closest functioning rink and the ice quality is really good,” Luhur said.
“We have a lot of hockey players, speed skaters, broom ball and figure skaters,” Fry said.
However, Fry wants to make sure that the invitation isn’t just extended to the pros. She wants the community of Columbus to know this is a community center above all else and a place where everyone is welcome.
“On Friday night you get the teenage kids and on Sundays you get the families,” Fry said. “You get everybody together.”
For more information on the Hamilton Community Center & Ice Arena’s hours and events click here.