Rink: Stories from an Oregon Ice Arena

They came from Medicine Hat, Alberta, Wing Lake, Michigan, Norwood, Massachusetts, Minnesota's Iron Range, and places with long winter ice.   These figure skaters, hockey players, and speed skaters had arrived in Oregon, willing to trade their passions for the beauty of the Pacific Northwest. When an unexpected opportunity arose to build an ice area, they tangled with skeptical politicians, equestrians, and a struggling economy to bring their dreams to life.

Twenty years later, they had to fight again to save it.

Rink centers on an ordinary building at the corner of an uncrowded parking lot, sheltering a thin sheet of ice where the extraordinary happens. It includes stories like the speed skater who escaped from the Red Army, the figure skater with cystic fibrosis, and the cancer patient who played his last hockey game connected to an oxygen tank.  

People in Lane County had no idea about the ice rink in Eugene, that the Oregon Ducks have a hockey team, or that Tonya Harding, Apolo Ohno, and Scott Hamilton all skated at their local rink.  

Rink tells the consequential tale of how Lane County built an ice arena and how it became so meaningful for thousands of its citizens.