Who can skate?

[Skoob]

I'm having a disagreement with a friend about the percentage of folks who know how to ice skate. Two questions, both the same (can you skate or not) but for different populations. Please only vote on one or the other.

First, if you spent a significant portion (more than 2 years) of your childhood living where there are outdoor rinks in the winter.

Second, if you lived in a place that did not have outdoor rinks (due to climate).

I define knowing how to skate as being confident that you won't fall, can start and stop with ease, no wobbly ankles or holding your arms out to balance yourself.

[Bicycles_Biatch]

Live in CA... loved rollar blading... feel about 90% confident on Ice...

Not Gretzky... but I'm not going to break my wrists

[Skoob]

I should mention that roller blading doesn't count. Not talking about you, BB. But your post brings up an important point.

Just because you can blade well doesn't mean you can automatically ice skate well. If you have only bladed on asphalt/pavement and assume you can skate on ice just as well but have never actually been on the ice, you fall into the category of "can't skate."

[nyc999]

Grew up on a lake...

OP - what percentage did you think could/could not skate?

[j_gomberski]

i grew up in the burbs of chicago, so not too many outdoor places to skate but my dads best friend talked him into allowing me to play ice hockey so i knew ho to skate by age 3 or so.

[Badger]

Growing up in suburban Minnesota it seems like everyone I knew was able to ice skate. I'm not sure what percentage of girls knew though- I'm guessing maybe 40% for them.

[AE6]

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Growing up in suburban Minnesota it seems like everyone I knew was able to ice skate. I'm not sure what percentage of girls knew though- I'm guessing maybe 40% for them.

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we don't count girls under the category of "everyone?"

[Badger]

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[ QUOTE ]
Growing up in suburban Minnesota it seems like everyone I knew was able to ice skate. I'm not sure what percentage of girls knew though- I'm guessing maybe 40% for them.

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we don't count girls under the category of "everyone?"

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I'm thinking back to my childhood here, when girls had cooties. So yes everyone I "knew" (i.e. hung out with) could skate. That consisted of maybe a half dozen girls. I'm not sure how popular it was with the rest of the girls at school, but I got the impression that most of the guys at school knew how.

So the group of kids that couldn't skate was about the same size as the group that didn't play basketball or baseball, the indoor type.

Edited to add: Keep my demographic in mind, my school was fairly blue collar, but not poor, there were probably a dozen rinks within a 10 minute radius of my house.

[Skoob]

[ QUOTE ]
Grew up on a lake...

OP - what percentage did you think could/could not skate?

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My friend argues that for those that grew up in colder states, the majority can skate (60% or more). I thought that it would be a smaller number, somewhere around 1/3.

For the warmer states, we were both thinking a much smaller percent, around 5%. I only asked out of curiosity.

When I say outdoor "rink," I mean any ice surface you can skate on, ponds, whatever. Anyplace where there's natural, skatable ice counts.

[Zurvan]

I grew up in a small city in Ontario. Every park in town had at least one city maintained outdoor rink, plus 5 indoor rinks.

I cannot skate without falling down, and can't stop without the boards [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]