PHOTO COURTESY OF KIDS CITY ASIA
recent years. Te first ice skating rink in neighboring
Vietnam opened in a shopping mall a year ago during the Christmas season, allowing children to amuse themselves by sliding on ice in rubber boots. Tere are also ice skating rinks now in Ma- laysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Tailand. Te first Olympic-size skating rink in Singapore was built last year. Te first ice rink in eastern Africa opened in Kenya in 2005, and there are also rinks in Colombia, South Africa, Puerto Rico, Saudi Arabia and Ecuador, to name a few. “We had the honor to install rinks in coun-
tries that never had them before since the late 1990s,” said Mike Rzechula, the chief technology officer of Ice Rink Supply, an American company that has built rinks in 13 countries worldwide, including Cambodia. “Ice rinks truly are expanding. Over the
years, there is hardly a country — and I’m not exaggerating — where someone hasn’t inquired about building an ice skating rink.” Rzechula even installed a rink in an old cir-
cus tent in the middle of the desert, only three miles from the Egyptian pyramids. Tat rink, which was the first in Egypt, was completed in 1997, he said. Te company is currently involved in nego-
tiations concerning the construction of the first indoor rink in Mongolia. According to Rzechula, ice skating rinks
Photos by Julie Masis
have become more affordable since the late 1990s due to the arrival of computerized technology. Tis new technology makes it possible to control temperatures more efficiently and even foresee problems before they occur, he said. “All our technology is governed by comput-
er,” he said. “All they (rink operators) have to do is set the temperature. If something goes wrong, the computer tells them. You’d think the price (of a rink) is higher because of inflation, but the price now is actually lower. It became very afford- able.”
According to him, a small rink — 50 by 120
feet — like the one in Cambodia, costs about $350,000 to build and $75 to $100 per day to operate. Overall, he said, it costs almost half as much to build a skating rink now than it did in the 1990s. Back in Cambodia, plans for the new facility
include private lessons, school trips, and evening ice shows. Meng Hieng, the owner, says he built the
rink not only to provide a new activity for the local youth, but also to bring the country’s sports to a new level. “It’s a sport activity that didn’t exist in Cam-
bodia, and I thought it’s a good idea to get chil- dren to do this activity to aim that in the future Cambodia will become part of the ice skating federation,” he said.
Cambodia’s first rink opened on the top floor of Kids City in Cambodia’s capital of Phnom Penh.
SKATING 41
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