The little girl with the skating aid is already at a good pace as she completes her laps. In the middle of the ice surface, a middle-aged man wearing a helmet turns carefully around his own axis. Others simply glide along comfortably. There’s not much going on this Wednesday morning at the Ice and Fun Sports Center West. Just a dozen amateur ice skaters found their way to Pasing. Which isn’t surprising: The season is only a few days old and Roland Bittner, the ice sports center’s deputy operations manager, also suspects that many potential runners want to sleep in after the Halloween party the evening before and then maybe get ready for the afternoon Skids swing.
For Jessica Hilsch, 24, and Davina Lehmann, 23, the almost empty ice rink offers ideal conditions to do their figure skating exercises in a relaxed manner. Jessica started skating at the age of six and is on the ice two to three times a week, either training with her club, the MEV, or privately. Davina trains at the ERC and has actually only been driving for three years, as she says. “But very good,” was Jessica’s verdict. The two met while ice skating and met by chance that Wednesday. Now they dance together on the ice with an enviable ease, you could almost say they are floating.
Jessica Hilsch (left) and Davina Lehmann train in temperatures that are not at all wintery.
(Photo: Alessandra Schellnegger)
Even if the ice rink on Agnes-Bernauer-Straße is only lightly attended on this day, ice skating is a popular sport in Munich. On peak days the space gets tight. When the number of visitors was limited to 200 during the corona pandemic, people stood in long lines in front of the stadium in the hope of being admitted.
But a large part of the ice time belongs to the schools and the clubs that train figure skating or ice hockey here. Two years ago there was no longer any public run in the west, which led to protests, especially among the people of Pasing. Since last season there has been limited regular operations again. In the evenings and on weekends, however, there is no longer any opportunity for private hobby runners; only during the holidays, when the clubs are not training, is there a public run more often. The city provides information on its homepage muenchen.de about the current opening times.
Last season, when the West Ice Stadium was only open during the Christmas holidays, almost 3,800 people came to Pasing for the public run in a short period of time. There are significantly more generous opening times, including evenings and weekends, at the Ice and Fun Sports Center East on Staudingerstrasse. Last season, more than 18,000 ice skaters did their laps there.
In addition to the two municipal stadiums, the Olympic ice rink is also open for public skating, the opening times are on the page olympiapark.de to find. And then of course there is this Prinzregentenstadion, which the municipal utilities operate. It is not yet clear when the season will start here.
In addition to the city’s ice rinks, there are also other offers: the popular, quite atmospheric ice skating fun on Luise-Kiesselbach-Platz opens from the end of November until the end of the Christmas holidays in early January “Ice skating fun at the dumpling place” in the Werksviertel from mid-November to Boxing Day. And there will probably be another ice magic event on the Stachus. There is no homepage for this yet, but the company Able recently advertised positions for the mulled wine blissful winter fun.
There is no mulled wine at the ice sports center in Pasing this Wednesday. They might serve it there during the Christmas season, depending on whether there is demand. Ice skate rentals don’t start there until mid-November. The 23/24 ice skating season has yet to get going. The weather on All Saints Day attracted people to the beer garden.