Aspiring Toronto skaters looking for a place to lace up this weekend just had their options cut in half, as most of the city’s outdoor rinks closed for the season on Sunday despite cold weather forecasts.

Of the City of Toronto’s 52 outdoor rinks, 17 will remain open till March 16.

But what if the city’s rinks were open according to temperature and not a pre-scheduled date? And what if the city focused on volunteer-maintenance, which might alleviate any monetary woes?

In Calgary, six city-run rinks are open based on loose approximations for dates (for example, mid-November to mid-March). Although that number pales in comparison to Toronto, Calgary has focused instead on helping volunteers and encouraging community centres to maintain their own, completely weather-dependent rinks throughout the colder months.

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Toronto has a similar program for natural rinks, but despite having a much smaller population, Calgary’s Adopt-A-Rink initiative and community centre approach produces more than 150 natural and outdoor drinks every year. Toronto hovers around 80.

Because the City of Toronto maintains so many of its own rinks, it’s possible few people feel the need for grassroots alternatives, even if they might prove less burdensome to the taxpayers. One notable exception: in 2011, when Scarborough had only one outdoor city rink, community members annoyed by the scarcity got together and built two themselves.

In most parts of Toronto, the city’s rinks are tied to council decisions.

Last week, Ward 29 (Toronto-Danforth) councillor Mary Fragedakis successfully pushed a motion through council to keep the Dieppe Park rink in her constituency open for three more weeks, at a cost of $25,000.

“What is that in the bigger picture of encouraging a healthy lifestyle and making sure that kids and seniors and others in the community have a resource to exercise?” she asked. “Certainly it’s worth a conversation.”

Mayoral candidate John Tory said the city bureaucracy should find money somewhere in the city budget to keep the closed rinks open as long as the others, until mid-March, given the cold weather.

"I think it's nuts. We're still in the month of February, we're not even into March. The month of February, and with a $10 billion budget, I can't believe that somebody can't find the money to keep these open," Tory said.

James Dann, the city’s waterfront parks manager, said Toronto does the best it can with the outdoor rink schedule given municipally imposed limits.

“We are council-directed with both our budget and our opening and closing dates,” he said, noting in the past there has been a small degree of flexibility to extend the season, given demand and weather.

Money is the major issue for council, as keeping all of the rinks open longer would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in labour and maintenance costs. But even if the funding is there, as with Dieppe Park this year, and the weather stays frigid, Dann said it doesn’t mean the rinks stay skate-ready.

“We still have an inability to maintain ice with sun angles into late March,” he said, explaining the ice can still melt — causing hazards for skaters — even if it’s very cold out.

There may be a solution to the sun problem, however: roofs.

Last November, the city opened its first covered outdoor rink, at Greenwood Park in Toronto’s east end. Dann said if there’s a rink that could survive past the March 16 date, that might be it.

Adding a roof to extend the season may be an option for other favourite skating locations, but it’s said to be a very expensive one.

“Do we have the capital dollars to put the roofs on? Not even close,” Dann said, noting the design and construction of the Greenwood roof was $1.1 million.

Rinks remaining open until March 16:

Broadlands CC;

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Cedarvale AIR;

Colonel Sam Smith Park;

Dieppe Park;

Dufferin Grove Park;

Glen Long CC;

Greenwood Park;

Irving W. Chapley CC;

Kew Gardens;

Mel Lastman Square;

Monarch Park;

Nathan Phillips Square;

Regent Park (south park);

Rennie Park;

Scarborough Civic Centre/Albert Campbell;

Sunnydale Acres Rink;

and West Mall Rink.