Park City has maintained two outdoor ice rinks in City Park each winter for the last five years.
Operations coordinator Mike Dierson puts up the rinks each season. Before he could finish, he said someone vandalized one of the would-be ice rinks.
“Someone had broken in, ripped off one of the doors that I had put up to stop folks from going in until the rinks are ready,” he said. “They broke in and then they poked a hole in one of the rinks.”
The hole in the rink liner means it can’t hold the water Mother Nature eventually freezes to create the skating surface.
Dierson said now the rink has to drain so he can patch the hole and refill it in hopes it freezes this winter.
He’s asking locals to be patient through the unseasonably warm weather.
“These are natural ice sheets, so Mother Nature helps me freeze them. So when the weather is as warm as it is right now, we just can't have the rinks open,” he said. “I just ask the public, if they see something, say something.”
Between the vandalism and the warmer temperatures, Dierson said it’s unclear when the ice rinks will be ready for skaters.
