New Ideas for Ice Skating!

My name is Vanessa Mary Dawn Masterson and I am a new Junior Reporter. I am 7 years old and I am in second grade at Palisades Charter Elementary School.

There are many people in Pacific Palisades who love to ice skate.

I know because I love to ice skate, and I saw many people skating when I was at the skating rink in Santa Monica during the holidays.

I ran into many friends there. Everyone looked happy. People were smiling, holding hands and listening to music while they were ice skating. There were people learning to ice skate and professionals.

I feel free, challenged, delighted and lucky when I am on the ice.

I am writing this article to report that the Santa Monica ice rink closed down after the holidays and there is no where else to ice skate near by—at

least until it reopens at the end of the year.

The closest place to go is the Toyota Sports Center. It is in El Segundo and it is a long way away. It takes about 45 minutes to get there.

The Toyota Sports center is fun—it has four large ice skating rinks.

The rinks are for figure skaters, hockey players and free skaters.

I have gotten very good but I do not want to have to drive to El Segundo every time I want to ice skate.

Now I can skate backwards and turn but I am missing ice skating be-

cause we can not drive there every day like we did when the rink was in Santa Monica.

My solution for this might be to build an ice skating rink in the Palisades. Maybe we could build it in the new buildings (Rick Caruso’s Palisades Village project) they are putting up in town?

I think an ice skating rink in the Village would be very successful because so many people like to ice skate.

I hope you have enjoyed reading about the hopefully new ice skating rink in the Palisades!

Photo caption: Vanessa on ice. Photo courtsey of the Masterson family