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The Longville Community Skating Rink has come a long way since the late 1990's when the Longville Ice Skating Rink was located on the baseball field by the Longville Elementary School. The hockey boards were put up every fall and taken down every spring, which was a lot of work. So when a different site became available on property back of the school and near the Northland Family Center, the rink location was moved. The rink thrived there for many years, but the rink committee was faced with having to find another new location when most of the School property was sold. The rink was now partially on private property.

In the summer of 2013 the City of Longville was finalizing plans for a city park on the south edge of town on Highway 84. The Longville Community Ice Skating Rink Committee was asked if the rink could be moved to a location in that park. The committee happily agreed and plans were underway to move the rink.

Using help from the Sentence to Serve program and local volunteers, the hockey rink boards were taken down, moved and installed in the new location. This help was well appreciated. And the hockey rink was ready for use by late December of 2013. In fact, this move allowed for two ice skating surfaces, one for hockey and one for just plain skating. There are now two skating surfaces available to skaters.

In the spring of 2014, the Longville Community Ice Skating Rink Committee received a huge surprise when a seasonal resident of the Longville area, who runs a hockey board manufacturing and installation company, offered to sell to us a used Zamboni machine for only $10. This was a great benefit to the rinks. It saves much time and effort in cleaning and flooding the rinks Longville may well be the smallest town with a Zamboni machine.

During the summer and fall of 2014 electrical power was added to two poles to supply overhead lighting to the hockey rink. Although the wires had to be laid on the ground for the winter, at least we had lights for the 2014-2015 ice skating season.

During the summer and fall of 2015 work continued on the rink with the installation of lights on the remaining two poles and getting all the electrical wires buried. The rinks are now ready for the 2015-2016 skating season.

The skating rinks are cared for by rink manager Bob Ugstad who is extremely grateful for the use of the Zamboni machine. Bob uses the machine to clear off small snowfalls and, of course, to flood the rinks. For bigger snowfalls, Bob has to use the snow blower and shoveling.

The Longville Community Ice Skating Rink is open on Wednesday and Friday evenings from 5 to 9 p.m. In addition, the rinks are open on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Sundays from noon to 5 p.m. The rinks can be opened at other times for special events, such as birthday parties, by contacting Bob Ugstad at 218-259-1369 or Craig Anderson at 218-363-2649 or Mike Froehlig at 218-682-3127.

A great feature of the Longville Community Ice Skating Rink is the fact that it has dozens of pairs of skates of various sizes and some hockey equipment, available for use by anybody who needs them. There is no charge for the use of the skates or hockey equipment.

The Community rink is supported entirely by donations. If you want to support our rinks, please make out your tax deductible check to the Northland Area Family Service Center, our fiscal agent, with the skating rink designated on the memo line. Donations can be mailed to the Family Center at PO Box 304, Remer, Minnesota, 56672.

If you have not checked out the Longville Community Ice Skating Rink, please stop by and enjoy some fresh air on the ice.

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