The outdoor ice skating rink at The Shipyards is now open to the public and people of all ages, skating is free, skate rentals are available for $7 for adults and $5 for kids, helmets are available for free and mandatory for people under 12, hours of operation are 12noon to 7pm daily and closed on Christmas day. Located at 125 Victory Ship Way in the Lower Lonsdale Shipyards District of North Vancouver. There is plenty of underground public parking available as well as public transit from the Lonsdale Quay Seabus and Translink buses.
Contact Skate Plaza Customer Service
Phone: 604.982.8399
Email: theshipyards@cnv.org
Realtime Updates About the Skating Rink
Update January 7 2020: the City of North Vancouver has sent out a Tweet on Twitter that states over 11,000 people have skated at the new Skate Plaza since opening, which is a huge success for the outdoor skating rink at The Shipyards.
Update January 1 2020: New Years Day down at the Shipyards there were many people out walking around and enjoying Public Skating with the community, we have added 2 new photos below taken from today.
Update December 24 2019: we uploaded a video to Twitter of the Christmas Eve crowds at the skating rink enjoying public skating with their friends and family, as well as added a new photo below highlighting the amount of people.
Update December 19 2019: we added new photos to this article above and below, and many local news websites such as North Shore News, Vancouver is Awesome, Daily Hive, Global News, Curiocity, CTV News, News 1130, The Province, Vancouver Sun and Narcity have covered the grand opening of the largest outdoor skating rink in Metro Vancouver.
Update December 18 2019: the skating rink is now open to the public check out our video of the first skaters using the new space.
Update December 16 2019: the skating rink is near opening and the city and shipyards developer are testing the 100% electric zamboni, photos below. As well for safety reasons helmets are mandatory and available for free.
Update November 24 2019: the City of North Vancouver has created a new section of their website for the ‘Skate Plaza‘ and we have added photos below.
Update November 14 2019: the ice surface is now installed at the skating rink and it will be opening to the public soon, check out the photo and video.
Original Article from September 16 2019
We have awesome news for you, some time between now and the end of November 2019 the outdoor skating rink arena will be open at The Shipyards Commons in Lower Lonsdale near Lonsdale Quay North Vancouver. We have yet to find out the rental costs, family skate prices, and schedule but we will publish information about that when it’s available.
Located right where the summer water park splash zone was setup and covered by a retractable roof so during sunny days you can skate in the sunshine and have more of an outdoor skating rink experience.
The great thing about The Shipyards skating rink is there will be plenty of seating, and the ice surface is to be used by people of all ages, including kids, adults, and seniors. On top of that there are about 140 new parking spots within the vicinity and places for electric vehicle charging.
What better way to celebrate your health and fitness then going for a skating session with your friends or family, a truly Canadian tradition. In small town Canada we would flood local tennis courts and let them freeze over to play ice hockey in suburbia, this will be somewhat similar.
And on March 14th and 15th 2020 at this very skating rink will be the Rogers Hometown Hockey exhibition bringing NHL celebrities to The Shipyards.
Are you planning on making use of this new space with your family?
New Photos of the Shipyards Ice Skating Rink in Lower Lonsdale
Hello, I am excited to bring my Pathfinder unit to come skate on the Shipyards rink this winter. Can you please tell me when it might be opening? Many thanks
It should be opening soon we are still waiting to hear from the City of North Van and The Shipyards developers.
Hi there, I am also hoping to bring a group skating here in early December. How can I find out more information about when it will be opening/prices etc?
Thank you!
As soon as we hear more information we will update this article. 🙂
Is it opened yet?
The ice skating rink at the new Shipyards development in North Vancouver is not open, when the City announces the formal opening dates and any other information that has not been disclosed we will definitely update this article at the top, should you have any further questions about outdoor public skating in Lower Lonsdale do not hesitate to let us know, thx
We have been waiting for weeks for info about when the skating rink will open, what’s the date that happens? Did the arena already have a break down even before opening? Also what’s the rules with wearing helmets? Thanks!!
Thanks for your comment, as the Shipyards Development is new they are going through some growing pains which is a natural part of new developments especially at this scale in such an historic part of the city, the equipment used to freeze the ice and maintain it is also being tweaked from what we understand… in terms of the opening date we have yet to hear from the city but when we do we will definitely update this article with the info and new photos… with regards to the helmets we also do not know that yet but there were roller skating events here in the summer and adults had the choice to wear helmets or not… we will see what happens and thanks for taking the time to comment
Hi there, just wondering if there are any rental lockers available? I will be taking transit there and it would be so great to have a place to safely store my belongings.
There are public spaces to put your items but we did not see any rental lockers on location, however you can also place your items on the bench adjacent to where you are skating to keep on eye on things in that capacity, smart idea to take transit as the Lonsdale Quay Seabus and Translink buses stop very close to this location, and just an FYI there is plenty of public parking downstairs
There needs to be coin rental lockers installed at the rink to make this functional for people that use public transit to get there, I can’t believe the architects missed such an important detail.
That is a great piece of feedback for the City of North Vancouver and Shipyards developers, likely they will have lockers in the future based on feedback like this, plus more bike lock areas, water fountains and the like… as the development is new there will of course be some growing pains but overall having the skating rink is such a gift for the Lower Lonsdale community
This is a really cool idea in theory. We were all dressed up and sauntered on down to enjoy the rink but were told when we got there that there were no size 1, 2 or 3 skates (hadn’t been delivered yet). So, 4 of the 6 kids we had bundled up for an evening of fun couldn’t skate. We were told that this is a ‘soft launch’ so not all stock has arrived. Something to consider if you have kids that wear size 1-3 shoes. Also, they have limited size 4. If you have your own skates – bring them along or you may be faced with some pretty upset kiddos.
Thanks for letting us and our readers know about this… unfortunate thing to happen and likely the management of the outdoor public skating rink will get more skate rental options, helmets in additional sizes, as well as lockers and new seating areas… we were not told the opening of the ice rink was a soft launch so our readers will be happy to know about that… have a happy Christmas!
What are the hours in February?
Thanks for your message about the hours of operation for the Shipyards skating rink for February 2020, this would be 12 noon to 7 pm daily or as otherwise posted by the City of North Vancouver.