Kids in Prague

Ice Skating at Štvanice Island, Prague 7

Activities, Sports and Fitness on 08 March 2009 by Karen (4 comments)

It has been a long and cold winter but why not make the rest of it a bit more pleasant by taking your kids ice-skating at this historical island in the middle of Prague?

Situated right on the bank of the Vltava River and just off the very busy Magistrale (Wilsonova Road), under Hlavkuv Bridge, the Island of Štvanice has a very old Indoor Ice Stadium called - Zimní stadion Štvanice.

It doesn’t look like much when you walk down the stairs towards the stadium and it is a little dark inside, but the ice is great and the stadium is open to the public 7 days a week, from about mid-September until mid to late April.

Our 7-year-old (who is an ice-skating novice) has really been enjoying coming here. 3-year-old Albie can stand on the ice but that’s about it. I have seen quite a few young kids not more than 3 or 4 already skating around like little pros. Yet it’s not about how good you are but about having a go and having fun while doing it.

Ice skates are available for hire directly at the stadium (over 500 pairs with sizes ranging from 29-51) and the cost is 80 CZK per pair. One can also hire skates for use outside of the stadium, in which case the cost is 160 CZK per pair plus a 1000 CZK deposit. At a cost of 50 CZK per pair, you can have the blades of your skates sharpened. Kids’ helmets can be hired at an additional 80 CZK per helmet. If you have your own skates, then you may use these, of course. When you skate, you leave your shoes at the benches surrounding the ice rink.

There are 2 ice skating rinks – one large one (94x32m) which is used by most people, plus a smaller rink (15x30cm), called the ‘noodle’, generally reserved for people with hockey sticks.

The stadium itself harks back to the 1930s (completed in 1932). The first ever ice hockey match to be held on artificially created ice took place here on 17.1.1932. It was between the Prague LTC Club and Manitoba Canada, with Canada winning 2:0. Over 7 thousand fans came along to watch the game! In 1947 the Czechoslovak Ice Hockey team, won the World Championships in the same place. The stadium was to host an additional 3 World Championship tournaments but by the late 1960s, the ice rink had to close down. It wasn’t until 1997 that the company APex CLUB took over the lease and decided to revive the ice-rink. After surviving the devastating floods of August 2002 (with an estimated total renovations cost of over 20 million CZK), the ice rink on Stvanice Island remains open to the public to this day. It even holds local heritage status and stands as a protected monument. (source: http://www.stvanice.cz/historie.htm).

Cost:
Adults: 80 CZK; Children up to 6: 20 CZK; non-skaters: 15 CZK; Whole day entry: 100 CZK p/p; Unlimited Monthly Entry: 1000 CZK p/p
Free change rooms are available. There is also a small bistro selling drinks and other refreshments including hotdogs (parek v rohliku).