Parents angry over closure of Mill River Park ice rink

STAMFORD — For the past two winters, skaters have glided around the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Skating Center at Mill River Park, in a modern spin on a longtime winter ritual: skating on the Mill Pond when the water froze over.

“Skating on the Mill Pond was a really big part of … the fabric of Stamford,” said Nia Rhodes Jackson, the park’s director of visitor experience. “When we constructed Mill River Park, one of the things that we always wanted to do was bring back skating to the area.”

This year, the tradition was cut short.

The Mill River Collaborative — the nonprofit entrusted with managing the park — has shuttered its rink almost two months early. But the move was not made voluntarily. The state Department of Economic and Community Development ordered the rink to close because of the state’s COVID-19 restrictions.

Connecticut’s Team Sports on Pause guidelines, which were released on Nov. 20, limit high-risk athletic activities, whether indoors or out. Sports like wrestling, boys’ lacrosse, and rugby were formally canceled for the fall because of the pandemic, either due to team sizes or close proximity during play.

Moderate-risk sports like hockey have also been curtailed; practices are limited to four players or less. Gov. Ned Lamont’s office mandates that sports be played with four participants or fewer across all permitted sports, and defines a team as “as a group of more than 4 people jointly engaged in an organized or recreational athletic activity on a court, field, etc.”

Because of that provision, any group of skaters numbering four or more, even if not actually together, at the Mill River rink would constitute a team, which forced the close, the collective explained in a posting on its website.

Families that frequent Mill River Park said that the move “makes no sense” in the grand scheme of the pandemic, especially as options for outdoor recreation dwindle during the cold months.

“They’ve taken away a safe — in my opinion — outdoor activity,” said Elena Cantrell, who lives in Stamford with her husband and son, Jordan.

Cantrell is one of many parents incensed by the decision to shutter the rink, which is completely outdoors. Jackson said parents like her have taken respite at the park since the earliest days of the pandemic.

“We have really seen visitors go up, and really seen the park be a refuge for people,” said Jackson. “The park was designed to be the backyard for all of the residents that were moving into Stamford Downtown. When you have increased density and people in apartments, where do they go to get fresh air? … Those people came into the park.”

The rink opened for the season at 50 percent capacity the day after Team Sports on Pause rules went into effect, a decision that Jackson said the Collaborative was cautious in making and one that it believed followed guidelines.

“If you read Team Sports on Pause, it talks about competitions and practices,” said Jackson. “There’s nothing in there that sounds anything like skating.”

The rink continued to operate for two weeks before city officials told the Collaborative that it was in violation of COVID guidelines, based on the state’s definition of teams. The Mill River Collaborative responded by writing a memo to the DECD in which it enumerated its “advanced safety protocol,” ultimately asking for a waiver to continue operating the ice rink.

The Collaborative offered to operate at a lower capacity — 25 percent — while also continuing to operate its online ticketing system and providing 75-minute windows for skating.

The Collaborative also asked the state to review its definition of public skating as a team sport, but the DECD declined, according to the Collaborative.

Department of Economic and Community Development officials were not available to comment Monday.

Jackson has been fielding phone calls from parents, desperate for a place to take their kids after Stamford Public Schools switched to remote learning until mid-January.

“We are getting requests from parents saying ‘This is the only real outdoor recreation around. Will you guys consider expanding hours?’” said Jackson. “Unfortunately, we actually can’t, you know, we might not even be open.”

Lauren Briggs was heartbroken by the news. She’d taken her two boys, ages 3 and 5, to the rink right before it closed. Briggs, who works as a nurse in Greenwich, felt safe at the rink and was at a loss when news of the closure hit.

“There’s always a risk, no matter what you’re doing, and we have to make educated decisions on what we want to choose to do as a family,” said Briggs. “And this is a low-risk activity.”

Cantrell feels the same way. Her eight-year-old plays hockey under typical circumstances, and the rink allowed him to stay on the ice without breaking rules — or so she thought. She finds the closure to be an inconsistent application of COVID guidelines.

Dance studios and bowling alleys — two indoor recreational spaces — remain open even though the rink must close, which she said she finds confusing.

“How do I tell my kids, ‘It’s OK, we can go to the restaurant with no mask on, (but not go to the rink?),’” said Cantrell.