Dolores Park: Experiments in Community-Driven Hockey

05:30 AM EST
04.04.2023
3
min - read
Max Rosenthal
05:30 AM EST
04.04.2023
3
min - read

“It is easy to find a reason to play when the focus is community, not money.”

Not Your Average Rink

Sitting under palm trees on a hillside overlooking the city, nestled into San Francisco's Mission District, you'll find a hockey rink beyond comparison. Dolores Park is a public recreational area in the city filled with picnics, paleteros, and of course, an outdoor sport court that gives the local roller hockey community a place to call home. Roller hockey players on the open-air rink typically see hundreds of parkgoers walking by the rink during a game. When players aren’t marveling at the passing crowds or jugglers practicing on a nearby green, they'll see parrots known for perching themselves atop the chain link fence around the rink, craning their heads back and forth to watch the hockey ball careen across the pavement. In short, the Dolores Park rink is unlike any other.

Community at Play


The players at Dolores Park are also different. Some wear roller skates instead of blades; some have played NCAA ice hockey, while others have never been on ice. On the court, there are often more women than men, and rainbow-colored tape is about as common as traditional black and white stick tape. All of this comes together because of the community-driven nature of the rink.


Unlike indoor ice or roller rinks in the area, no central body manages the playing space at Dolores Park. On the negative side, this means that confusion occasionally comes up around scheduling, since Zumba classes, cycle polo players, skateboarders, and many others also use the surface. Groups can select their preferred playing time on a city resource page, but that is the extent of structure at the rink. This also, to the benefit of participants, means there is no cost or registration process for players. There are also no stat sheets, no insurance fees, no penalties or fights, no scoreboard and no referees. If you asked the players to describe why they call the rink at Dolores Park home, you would probably hear that the love of the game and the people around it are the biggest motivating factors. While the rink in Dolores Park may not have a sports bar or other amenities often found in for-profit arenas, the feeling of skating with friends outdoors is unmatched.

Power to the Players

Why do people play hockey? Some do it for the speed, others for the ice. Some for the competition and others because of friends. You might even be convinced that people play hockey in order to make millions of dollars as a pro player, especially considering the high cost often associated with participating in the sport. In reality, there are about as many reasons to play as there are players. Unfortunately, the Dolores Park rink and its relative lack of structure is a rare phenomenon in the Bay Area, and in the broader game of hockey. In Northern California, and in hockey hotbeds across North America, rinks, whether indoor or outdoor, frozen or concrete, are often business operations, with all of the associated costs to participate. Free, community-driven hockey is one of the many ingredients necessary to grow the game, especially where ice may be limited. When players lead, love for the sport shines through, giving color to a game often characterized by enormous walls of gray corrugated sheet metal. It is easy to find a reason to play when the focus is community, not money.

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