Ice rink

Ice skating party in Warsaw in the 1880s; Rockefeller Center ice rink in New York City; Ice hockey at Madison Square Garden in New York City

An ice rink (or ice skating rink) is a frozen body of water and/or an artificial sheet of ice where people can ice skate or play winter sports. Ice rinks are also used for exhibitions, contests and ice shows. The growth and increasing popularity of ice skating during the 1800s marked a rise in the deliberate construction of ice rinks in numerous areas of the world.

The word "rink" is a word of Scottish origin meaning "course", used to describe the ice surface used in the sport of curling, but was kept in use once the winter team sport of ice hockey became established.^[1][2]

There are two types of ice rinks in prevalent use today: natural ice rinks, where freezing occurs from cold ambient temperatures, and artificial ice rinks (or mechanically frozen), where a coolant produces cold temperatures underneath the water body(on which the game is played), causing the water body to freeze and then stay frozen. There are also synthetic ice rinks where skating surfaces are made out of plastics.

Besides recreational ice skating, some of its uses include: ice hockey, sledge hockey (a.k.a. "Para ice hockey", or "sled hockey"), spongee (a.k.a. sponge hockey), bandy, rink bandy, rinkball, ringette, broomball (both indoor and outdoor versions), Moscow broomball, speed skating, figure skating, ice stock sport, curling, and crokicurl. However, Moscow broomball is typically played on a tarmac tennis court that has been flooded with water and allowed to freeze. The sports of broomball, curling, ice stock sport, spongee, Moscow broomball, and the game of crokicurl, do not use ice skates of any kind.

While technically not an ice rink, ice tracks and trails, such as those used in the sport of speed skating and recreational or pleasure skating are sometimes referred to as "ice rinks".