Edmonton’s lone roller-skating rink offers a new spin on an old pastime

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Twenty-one-year-old Mika Boutin glided toward two men who had walked through the mirrored doors of a suburban Edmonton business on an uncharacteristically warm fall Friday night. The men surveyed the scene around them with curiosity. There was music pumping – Blondie, or was it Kate Bush? – and metallic fringe fluttered along the wall of windows. A pair of spinning disco balls sent a chaos of light swirling around the space.

So, you roller-skate here?, one of the men asked.

Since Rollers Roller Rink opened last December, Boutin and her small team of co-workers had grown accustomed to the range of reactions of people who passed through the doors for the first time.

Many were, like these men, surprised to discover Edmonton had a roller rink again, having stumbled onto it in the vast business complex that includes a Moxies, a Cineplex movie theatre and a Chuck E. Cheese.

Some people, mostly older, shared their own memories of roller-skating back in the day. Others, mostly younger, were excited to try it for the first time.

Roller-skating, by its nature, evokes a sweet nostalgia, conjuring the joy and fun of the past whether you actually lived in that time or not. Because of this, the people who walked into Rollers always seemed happy.

Boutin wore tan roller skates decorated with giant fluffy pompons. The men each bought a cute pair of socks (pugs and rainbows, respectively), grabbed their rental roller skates, and headed to a bench to wheel up.

Rollers’ owner Claudia Garcia, 50, grew up roller-skating in the 1970s and 80s, at one of three rinks that were open in the Edmonton area in those days. It seemed like everyone skated then, and Garcia went often, with her friends, school groups and her parents after church on Sundays.

Since its invention more than 250 years ago, roller-skating has experienced several dramatic waves of mainstream popularity, ping-ponging from being wildly trendy in some periods to, on the downslope, nearly obsolete. The 1990s and 2000s saw most of the roller rinks around Canada close, and skates and equipment became difficult to find.

Garcia got involved in roller-skating again as an adult about 15 years ago to play roller derby, a sport which had been undergoing its own resurgence in off-season curling rinks, empty arenas and other repurposed spaces around the country. Unable to source the gear she wanted, Garcia, who was then working as a parole officer, started a small roller-skate business, Toe Stop Derby Shop, selling roller skates and other equipment out of her house.

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Garcia and her daughter were on their way to a roller-derby event in California when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and put a sudden brake on the close-contact sport.

But while the pandemic ground derby to a halt for a time, it also, just as unexpectedly, lit the fuse on an explosion of interest in recreational roller-skating and roller-dancing, as people sought interesting new pastimes and exercise that could be done alone, outside and/or at a distance.

In many ways, roller skating was primed for a mainstream comeback. It is both rigorous exercise and creative artistry, a simultaneously social and individual pursuit. It’s active and challenging, but also a lark and a rollick, best accompanied with a bumping soundtrack, highly accommodating to a cute outfit, and leaving plenty of room for individual panache.

On social media, roller skaters racked up views and followers with videos of themselves rolling gracefully along empty highways and sunlit paths, making it look both extremely cool and tantalizingly easy.

Online tutorials showed novices how to skate, including an entire genre of small-space videos, demonstrating a surprisingly large array of moves – including bubbles, spins and balance exercises – that could be done while quarantined at home.

Features in Vogue and The New York Times confirmed that roller skating was, indeed, having a moment (again).

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Garcia’s house swelled with stock as she worked to fill orders, rooms filling to the ceiling with roller skates and gear. Customers lined up down the driveway for pickups, and she mailed out multiple packages a day.

Seeing the level of interest, the idea of opening a roller rink – which Garcia had long imagined a far-away goal – suddenly seemed very possible. Finding places to skate has been a longstanding problem for both roller derby and recreational roller skating, and while there are pop-up events and meet-ups, Garcia dreamed of something more permanent.

After intensive searching to find a location that could work with city zoning requirements and still be viable as a business location, she opened Rollers.

As the rink nears its first anniversary, there are an increasing number of birthday parties and bachelorettes, school groups and dates. A lot of people like to come in costume, and among their regulars is a man who used to be a professional roller skater. One woman visited from Texas, as part of a tour of roller rinks around the continent. A family travelled from Saskatoon just to go skating.

There are weekly classes and monthly passes, and Garcia has plans to keep adapting and improving the space, in hopes the roller-skating scene in Alberta will continue to evolve and grow.

“Here in Edmonton, everyone’s new to skating, basically, because we haven’t had a rink for so long,” she said, as the song Xanadu played in the background.

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Chloe Spelliscy, 24, taught herself roller dance by watching videos and tutorials online, practising against the rules at an outdoor tennis court, sometimes paying to use an old racquetball court in a dusty gym basement. She is Rollers’ only full-time employee, and also teaches classes at the rink.

“It takes a lot of patience,” she would tell her students. “But anyone can roller skate.”

The two men who came in that night circled the rink with the efficient athleticism of hockey players. Across the room, Seth Anderson, 21, and Alayna Hoy, 19, rolled unsteadily together, laughing and holding hands.

It was a quiet night, and as Spelliscy finished her shift, she took to the floor, kicking one leg high in the air, spinning, strutting, turning disco circles. She wore a pink and orange jumpsuit, and the wheels of her roller skates lit up as she twirled.

“I probably wouldn’t really be anywhere else,” she said. “If I didn’t work here, I would definitely be the person here every Friday and Saturday night.”