Ottawa University student Jessie Hargreaves is a regular visitor of the Rideau Canal. Living near the Byward Market, the Canal and the Rink of Dreams in front of Ottawa City Hall is her first choice almost every weekend.

Lacing up her skates in the trailer outside City Hall, Hargreaves says, “It’s nice to sit somewhere warm, especially when it gets really cold. It’s more enjoyable when you are not frozen all the time.”

When asked whether she had any experience going skating without using a change room, Hargreaves says “Never”.

But not everyone is as lucky as her.

In the same public change room, Bill Winogron was packing all his family’s equipment into a over-sized bag , Winogron says he used to carry the bag when he skates because of the lack of change room at other rinks in Ottawa.

“It was a lot more dangerous and inconvenience. Instead of focusing on the skating part, you are distracted by what you are carrying,” Winogron says, “I think having a change facility is the first priority, it’s very important.”

Winogron and his family live in Alta Vista. The rink in their neighborhood has no change room, but thanks to a school nearby, they still have a place to go and change.

Official data show that Winogron’s neighborhood is not unique. More than half of Ottawa’s outdoor rinks have no public change rooms.

Among the 252 outdoor rinks that Ottawa has, nearly 150 of them have no place for people to get changed. The areas, which barely have any change rooms for all their outdoor rinks, are at the east and west edges of the city – Kitchissippi and Kanata.

Heat map: The percentage of rinks without a change room in each wards in Ottawa. 

Along with change rooms, another missing facility for nearly two-thirds of outdoor rinks in Ottawa are washrooms.

Chart: The percentage of outdoor rinks that have no washroom in each wards in Ottawa.

However, compared to change rooms, fewer people are concerned about toilets.

Tu Nguyen, who has a 12-year-old and a nine-year-old, (photo) lives in Barrhaven – near the south-end of the city.

He says there is a rink that is only 300-metres away from his home, and there is neither a change room nor a washroom for the rink.

“For me it doesn’t make any difference, because it is pretty close to my house. Kids would probably just come back to the house whenever they need to go.” Nguyen doesn’t complain about the lack of a washroom.

Ward Cosman, the Portfolio Manager for Seasonal Recreation of Ottawa, says although there is a lack of washrooms for outdoor rinks, the city rarely get any complaints.

He says Ottawa has the most outdoor rinks in Canada. Instead of meeting the national standard of making every 10,000 people have one outdoor rink, Ottawa makes sure there is one for every 4,000 people.

“We make sure it doesn’t take people too long to walk to the rink near where they live. Because children usually only spend half an hour or an hour outside in the winter, they can always go back home to use their own washroom.” Cosman says.

Cosman says another reason is that the investment for a washroom can be very expensive.

To build a washroom facility, the city has to introduce a waterline to the park, which could cost at least $35,000. “Even introducing a portable toilet, heat still has to be considered. It’s not that easy,” Cosman says.

He says the city’s yearly budget on outdoor ice rinks is $800,000, and constructing washrooms are not included in the budget.

But for public change rooms, Cosman says the city gives each neighborhood nearly $5,000 every year as long as they request a change room trailer, just like the one found at the Rink of Dream in front of City Hall.

“The neighborhood has to hire volunteers to make sure the trailer keep working 30 hours a week,” Cosman says, “that could be a reason many communities reluctant to have a change room, even though making a request to the city is not difficult at all.”