Ice skating begins on lukewarm note in Shimla

No centenary celebrations for club due to Covid

Advertisement

BOX

History of Ice Skating Rink

The Shimla Ice skating Club was established in 1920 by an Englishman, Blessington, who, finding the water taps and even the trickles of water frozen in the vicinity of his tennis courts, flooded the courts with water which to his utter joy got frozen. He converted the courts into an ice skating rink which was the first club to be established in India and was one of its kind in the whole of South East Asia.

Bhanu P Lohumi

Tribune News Service

Shimla, December 17

An ice skating session, which is a major winter attraction for people, commenced on a lukewarm note under the Covid-19 shadow at the Asia’s biggest natural ice skating rink in Shimla with only a dozen skaters stepping in today.

Extremely low temperatures that were below 3 degrees Celcius in the past two days created conducive conditions for a thick layer of ice to freeze, due to which organisers decided to start the regular session today after conducting a trial on Wednesday.

Incidentally, 2020 is the centenary year of the club which was established in 1920 but there will be no celebrations. In fact, even regular features like ‘Gymkhana’ and carnival will be skipped due to the pandemic.

As per Covid-19 guidelines, only 50 skaters will be allowed in the rink at one time who will have to adhere to general norms like wearing of masks, use of sanitizer and social distancing, said Shimla Ice Skating Club secretary Bhuvnesh Banga, adding that the number was expected to increase in the coming days.

There were around 300 regular members of the club and no new member had been added this year and it appears that the skating season will be a low-key affair this time as people are wary of sending their kids due to the rising number of Covid cases. The minimum number of 12 sessions of ice skating were held in 1972 while the maximum 118 sessions were held in 1996-97.