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What Different Types of Rink System Basements You Can Choose From

Ice skating is one of the world's most sought after winter sports. Ice hockey, ringette, broomball, speed skating, figure skating, ice stock sports, and curling are some of the popular ice sports. The skating owners have different ways to get the right foundation of ice for the rinks along the preferred dasher board. Here are three types of basements that manufacturers use to get that smooth, sleek ice finish:


Natural
 
The first ice rinks were built in wintertime on open water sources such as lakes, wetlands, canals, and rivers. In the winter, areas with freezing temperatures such as the Arctic used some frozen surfaces that were dense enough to bear human weight. Many owners often take advantage of temperature drop to freeze filled water in an enclosure. The Rideau Canal Skateway in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada is the largest natural ice rink, measuring at 1,782,000 square feet (165,600 m2) and 7.8 kilometers (4.8 mi) wide, equivalent to 90 Olympic-sized skating rinks. The rink is created by bringing in the canal water level and allowing the water to freeze. The longest ice skating path is situated at Lake Windermere Whiteway, in Invermere, British Columbia, Canada.


Synthetic
 
Synthetic rinks are produced from a solid polymer fabric that is designed primarily for skating with normal metal-bladed ice skates. These are made of polyethylene of high density (HDPE) and polyethylene of ultra-high molecular weight (UHMW), which gives the ideal smooth-skating properties. Costs for synthetic basin ice with synthetic UHMW rinks are more costly than any other option. It consists of several panels of thin surface material mounted on top of a solid, flat, and smooth subfloor to obtain a wide skating area with a little help from dasher boards. 


Artificial
 
As the very name suggests, the artificial ice skating rink is a man-made constructed space consisting of a sand bed or concrete sheet. They have chilled salt brine pipes flowing over it, or antifreeze spray. This helps to lower the slab temperature to freeze the water put atop. This process is known as 'artificial ice' to differentiate between ice rinks created by simply freezing water in a cold environment, both indoors and outdoors, but all forms are frozen.
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