Ice skaters, basketball players delighted by new Lincoln rink

LINCOLN – Prince Thomas Park’s basketball court is the town’s new outdoor ice rink, but don’t tell Jason Cox.

The 19-year-old Lincoln resident was shooting hoops there on Wednesday afternoon, eager to try out his new Michael Jordan Air-LA basketball sneakers.

“Aren’t they great? I got them at Marden’s yesterday,” Cox said. “I paid $5 and they’re worth, like, $80 at regular price. I love Michael Jordan. He’s my favorite all-time basketball player.”

Playing basketball on ice is no easy task, but Cox managed. His jumps were almost perfectly vertical and his slides – and he did a lot of sliding – were carefully controlled. His dribbling suffered from a certain understandable reluctance to cut sharply, and his rebounding was similarly relaxed, but his shooting seemed unaffected, aside from the occasional brick.

“I shoot anywhere,” Cox said. “Basketball is my life.”

Other town residents seem to be finding more traditional uses for the new ice rink since it opened last week. The rink was relocated from a boat landing in South Lincoln to get it closer to population centers, said Jeremy Weatherbee, Parks, Recreation and Cemeteries director.

The relocation was difficult, and the rink’s opening was delayed a few weeks. The basketball court was somewhat sloped and the water the Fire Department provided kept running to one side of it, Weatherbee said.

About 15,000 gallons were expended before the ice formed, Fire Chief William Lee said.

“The biggest reason for the delay was the cold weather mixing with warm spells,” Weatherbee said. “The weather didn’t cooperate.”

But part-time firefighter Bud Thornton, who usually oversees the ice rink, kept at it. After Public Works Department workers laid tarp that formed the base of the ice and shoveled snow to form banks, Thornton and Fire Department engineers slowly sprayed water onto the forming ice to level it out, Weatherbee said.

City workers cleared another area of similar size on Mattanawcook Lake, which is yards from the basketball court, for more skating room, and the snowmobile riders who use the lake seem to steer clear of those areas.

The end result is a lot of smooth and clean ice. Cox said he has seen handfuls of skaters on the ice over the last few days, and marks on the ice seemed to bear that out.

“See that stain there? I don’t know if that’s hot chocolate,” Cox said, “or somebody’s blood.

“This is a nice place for skating,” Cox added. “It’s fenced in here and the parking lot is right here so parents can sit inside their cars and smoke a cigarette while their kids skate.”

Cox looked stricken for a moment.

“We didn’t have anything like this when I was a kid,” he said.

Then he smiled.