Fritze Dietl Award Recipient: Ice Den Chandler

An Award-Winning Facility in Arizona

(Not That One, The Other One)

By Kent McDill

In 2016, the PSA Fritz Dietl Award for Ice Skating Facility Management went to the Ice Den in Scottsdale, Arizona. At that time, the management of that facility was busy spending $3 million to rehabilitate an ice arena facility in nearby Chandler, 14 miles to the south.

It is five years later, and the Ice Den Chandler is now the 2021 Fritz Dietl award winner.

The Fritzl Dietl Award for ice Arena Excellence honors the lifeftime dedication of Fritz Dietl to the ice skating industry and his determination to encourage innovation and excellence in facility management operations and programming.

“It’s an honor,” said Julie Patterson, Vice President of Programming and Skating at Ice Den Chandler. “We have a great staff in both facilities, and the staff can transfer between facilities. We try to maintain our programs to run the same.

“It is a challenge to run two facilities at the same time,” she said. “We have a very large staff that has been with us for a number of years.”

The Chandler facility is a stand-alone structure with wide-open spaces inside for viewing activity on the rinks. It has a spacious retail shop for both figure skating and hockey, and a food and snack stand which also has a view of the ice sheets.

There is actually little difference between the two facilities. Chandler has only two sheets of ice compared to three at Ice Den Scottsdale, so balancing the schedule is a bit more hectic in Chandler.

But Patterson and her staff do their best to balance the interest in both figure skating and hockey, which has turned into a huge team sport in the state of Arizona.

Does that seem unusual, that skating would be so popular in a state where the outdoors is relatively pleasant year-round? For those people who don’t necessarily love the excessive heat, an ice rink is the perfect place to get exercise without suffering from the rays of the burning sun.

“We have wait lists for some of our classes,” Patterson said. “The past couple of years, it was challenging for every rink to stay in operation, but right now our classes are filled out.

“We actually promote it that way,” she said. “‘Come in and beat the heat’” is one of our best slogans.”

A haven for PSA instruction

Patterson takes pride in her facility’s working relationship with the PSA and its coaching education programs.

“We are very strongly involved with the PSA,” Patterson said. “We promote everything the PSA does. We agree that a coach’s education and continuing education is important. We have quite often held Ratings Prep events for coaches in the area, and we encourage coaches on our staff to have a rating with the PSA. Our staff is very well educated and continues their education yearly.”

Promoting hockey instruction

When the Winnipeg Jets moved to Phoenix in 1996, it opened the doors for the youth in the area to develop an appreciation for a new indoor sport. In the 25 years since the Coyotes started play in the National Hockey League, hockey has recorded a huge interest among the youngsters and teenagers in the area, putting a new demand upon ice time for facilities such as the Ice Dens.

“I’m really lucky here in Chandler,” Patterson said. “We have two hockey directors for our travel team and house league teams. We work very closely together. For skaters, when they come to the Learn to Skate level to when they join the hockey program, we try to give them the best pathway to make that transition. We have a great relationship.”

Patterson said she is just as likely to field a call about hockey programs as she is to hear about figure skating opportunities.

“We have tried to incorporate more power skating programs,” Patterson said. “The need is there for the families. They ask for it a lot. Whenever we have extra ice time we try to put that out there.

“I have to be in tune with the public on what they want and what they want the facility to offer and try to keep people coming through our doors.”

Keeping skaters on ice through a pandemic

The entire world had to figure out how to operate amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Ice Den management was aggressive in maintaining a relationship with their skaters and families to keep them involved in the sport.

“We only closed down for two weeks total,” Patterson said. “We didn’t start classes until the summer (of 2020) and we kept everything at limited numbers, but we wanted people to feel safe and make sure they were comfortable coming into a good environment.”

Tara Patterson, the Director of Administration and Learn to Skate Manager, was in charge of developing programming for the sudden need for remote instruction.

“Some of our coaches did Zoom classes, with students doing their work in their yard, some doing it in

their living room,” Tara Patterson said. “There were a lot of great videos on-line that we sent out for people to reference in order to keep moving and keep their skills up.

“We got creative as best we could and kept communication open with our families to let them know we are going to come back as strong as we can,” she said. “We asked them to adapt with us and give us suggestions on how to make them comfortable when they come back.”

The future at the Ice Den

Julie Patterson said that her focus in her position in charge of the two facilities is to provide what the public wants rather than hoping what the facility offers will appeal to the public.

“We need to keep going where the interest is,” she said. “Team skating is huge right now, and we are trying to promote that in both our facilities. We have five synchro teams in Chandler this year.”

The good news is that when you decide to move to the Phoenix area, you do not need to give up your love of ice skating.