Ron Schaerer is the main volunteer at the outdoor rink in Riverside. He was disappointed by a nasty letter that was left onsite, but is still hard at work trying to have the rink open for Sunday. (Kevin Kyle/CHAT News)

By Jesse Gill

Nasty note left at Riverside outdoor rink about it being closed, expected to reopen Sunday

Feb 17, 2024 | 11:00 AM

A negative note aiming to insult the caretaker one of Medicine Hat‘s largest outdoor rink while it was closed was recently found by the volunteer.

The volunteer who takes care of the Riverside rink, Ron Schaerer, also had to clean up feces and urine from the a bench by the ice last weekend.

A lot of hard work is put in by volunteers to maintain the city’s outdoor public rinks for the enjoyment of the public, work often taken for granted, a city manager said.

Scott Richter, business innovations manager in the city parks and recreation department, said he was made aware of a negative note that was left onsite and found by the volunteer worker there.

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“The volunteer actually had presented to us and made us known, which was great,” Richter said.

“It wasn’t very positive. It was more of a negative in terms of what they’re doing,” he said.

“I think we need to let the community know that the volunteers work really hard on the rinks.”

Rink caretaker Schaerer continues to put long hours in over the 17 years he has done it as said when the weather changes people don’t understand what it takes to look after an outdoor rink.

“They think that they can go skating on it, well, unless they got swimming trunks, you don’t because there’s like an inch of water on that ice,” Schaerer said.

“Then when it disappears, we got to try to get it back from them.”

Scaerer had been at the rink most of the day Friday and expected to be working there into the early evening on getting the rink ready for use.

Last weekend Schaerer said that he had to clean up urine and human feces from one of the benches.

He wasn’t impressed, and if the public doesn’t take care of the rink it needs to be shut down at times for safety reasons.

Lots of regular use at the rink creates necessary maintenance.

“It’s not weekends only, it’s just about every day they you have to work because one flood, 30 guys come down here and skate on it,” Schaerer said.

“That flood, plus one that you put down before is gone,” he added.

“Now you’ve got to replace it.”

According to Richter, the volunteers do their best with flooding and maintenance at a variety of different hours, with weather playing a factor.

“With the recent warm weather, it was really hard to keep ice on all our rinks,” Richter said.

“Sometimes the volunteers will work at evening times or later in the evening to get a good flood so that it stays for the next day for people to enjoy,” he added.

“We usually have a lead volunteer for each of the rinks, and then that person will either recruit or we’ll add some people that are interested.”

The hopes are to have the ice at the outdoor rink in Riverside also known as Heald Rink built up to open and use on Sunday.

If anyone is looking to volunteer to help with outdoor rinks in the community, they can contact the parks and recreation department with the city at 403-529-8333.

For Schaerer that is something he would welcome.

“I wish more people got involved,” Schaerer said.

“But there isn’t, you know, because everyone wants to use it, but not help,” he added.

“That’s one of the biggest problems with these outdoor rinks.”