Best public places for off-ice training

[NiCnoK 61]

I've been looking around my town lately for good places to practice during the off-season and wondered what you all do. I mostly use a green biscuit on my inlines for stickhandling, or a shooting pad and target for shooting / saucing practice. I've got a couple tennis courts I use, but I often feel obligated to leave when actual tennis people come to use them. I've had good luck with a couple trails and I've found that those Sweedish stickhandling balls work better on them. I found a pedestrian highway overpass that also works well and provides some excitement with all the noise, but I constantly worry about losing the ball thru the fencing, onto the motorists below.

So what say all of you? I live in an apartment and have no basement or backyard to set up shop in, but I've got my rock hard wheels on the Marsblades, ready to roll. Do any of you have fun public places to practice? Thanks in advance.

[chippa13 1844]

Check around, many towns and/or rinks have outdoor "rinks" for roller/street hockey.

[shoeshine boy 242]

what is this "off season" that you speak of?   

[adams2001 54]

On 7/18/2017 at 0:28 PM, NiCnoK said:

I've been looking around my town lately for good places to practice during the off-season and wondered what you all do. I mostly use a green biscuit on my inlines for stickhandling, or a shooting pad and target for shooting / saucing practice. I've got a couple tennis courts I use, but I often feel obligated to leave when actual tennis people come to use them. I've had good luck with a couple trails and I've found that those Sweedish stickhandling balls work better on them. I found a pedestrian highway overpass that also works well and provides some excitement with all the noise, but I constantly worry about losing the ball thru the fencing, onto the motorists below.

So what say all of you? I live in an apartment and have no basement or backyard to set up shop in, but I've got my rock hard wheels on the Marsblades, ready to roll. Do any of you have fun public places to practice? Thanks in advance.

We have a couple of outdoor rinks near me.

I like to skate out with the marsblades from time to time. The outdoor rinks around here are like tennis courts so I use the IDS pucks.

I'm from Michigan and when I was a kid the city of Rochester built a couple of outdoor rinks at Borden park, those were the best outdoor rinks I've seen so far. I'm surprised you haven't found any in Ann Arbor.  

 

[badger_14 601]

Basketball courts, outdoor rinks/street hockey/multiuse courts.  Depending on your city, you can check the rec department page and it get some descriptions of playground/park facilities.  You could try parking lots of office parks during the weekend, but someone would probably call security/the police.  There's bound to be some sort of underused playground/park with a basketball court around you.

[NiCnoK 61]

I was at the Perani's sale in Farmington, MI and noticed a large, unused skate park next door. Has anyone tried stickhandling through a half-pipe?

On 7/19/2017 at 1:19 PM, adams2001 said:

We have a couple of outdoor rinks near me.

I like to skate out with the marsblades from time to time. The outdoor rinks around here are like tennis courts so I use the IDS pucks.

I'm from Michigan and when I was a kid the city of Rochester built a couple of outdoor rinks at Borden park, those were the best outdoor rinks I've seen so far. I'm surprised you haven't found any in Ann Arbor.  

 

 

We used to have one where the U of M band practices, but it's not there anymore. I'll check with the parks and rec, that's a good idea.