Many Ames/ISU Ice Arena patrons have noticed the sweeping changes between the old and new skating rinks.

In the month since letting people through its doors, the building has been praised by many ice skaters.

“Most people are amazed, almost to the point of disbelief, at how fantastic the facility is,” said Fred Sylvia, manager of the arena.

Mandy Safley, director of the Ames Figure Skating and Learn to Skate programs, not only enjoys the building, but also notes an important feature.

“I think the facility is beautiful,” she said. “The most advantageous [feature] for skating and coaching is that the ice is flat, where in the old rink, it had heaved in the middle. It’s also a little bit larger, so we have more room.”

On April 23, the new Ames ice arena was opened to the public, offering more storage space, as well as new rooms that accommodate more than just hockey teams.

“The figure skating club has our own room and we can leave our stuff in it so we don’t have to carry it around all the time in our cars,” said Annie Peterson, a regular skater and coach at the arena. “They use the space a lot better in this one than the old one.”

The Igloo is a multipurpose room that introduces a new aspect for people who might not be into skating.

“It’s a nice area to be able to hold board meetings or have birthday parties and all kinds of fun stuff that we never had at the old arena,” Safley said.

Another problem that people might not have to worry about anymore is the amount of heat supplied to the stands during events.

“One of the complaints a lot of people had for hockey games [was] that they were always freezing,” said Jenny Anderson, an ISU graduate student in integrated graduate studies. “Now it’s heated enough that it’s quite warm for shows and games. For parents watching their kids take lessons, it’s not unbearably cold in the observation area.”

As far as hockey events go, Sylvia said that the new building will remove a lot of spatial headaches that were caused in the old rink.

“We’d have the Cyclone men playing, then you’d have the women playing right after them,” he said. “After that, we could also have a JV game. So we have a triple-header and we only have four locker rooms for six teams. It works out where you had the spaces eaten up really quickly.”

The staff of the arena will now focus opening up the rink to more customers, especially during this time of the year.

“We’re lucky if we have the place filled with people for 10 hours in the day during the summer,” Sylvia said. “People want to be outside in the summertime, and they think of the ice arena last.”

Another idea that might be in the arena’s future is holding figure skating events, something that didn’t happen at the old rink.

“The skating club never held any figure skating competitions because the facilities never lent themselves to that,” Safley said. “We have every intention of holding figure skating competitions here.”

As people start getting used to the new facility, they will only be left with memories of the old building. Peterson skated at the old arena for about eight years.

“There were special things about the rink that I’ll always remember,” she said. “Even though it wasn’t a nice rink, it was the first rink I skated in, so I `m going to miss it.”

Sylvia knows that to build a following for the new facility, some of the memories people have stored will have to be forgotten.

“We’re trying to break that perception of what the old arena was,” he said. “The place is more inviting, so people actually want to spend more time here rather than just getting on the ice and leaving.”

Even though she will always remember the building where she first put on her skates, Peterson is enthusiastic about the possibilities for the new arena.

“It’s exciting that we have this kind of opportunity in Ames,” she said. “We didn’t really think it was going to happen for a long time. I think everybody in Ames should come see it.”