Paramount Rink Thrives Despite Drought : Recreation: Many ice palaces plan to close. Former manager of Iceland says they can be moneymakers.

It didn’t take long for Nick Nickerson, 72, to make his move. Playing hockey at Pickwick Ice Arena, he saw something more tempting than an empty net. Walter Stavert, one of Pickwick’s owners, had just walked in.

“I skated over,” he said, “and asked to talk to him; told him how old I was and took off my helmet so he could see my gray hair. When I let him know I’d been playing there for years and hoped he would reconsider his decision to close the rink, he said, ‘Well, we’re gonna keep it going.’ ”

A few days later, Kristin Thomas, 11, walked to the mike at a meeting of the Burbank Park and Recreation Board and made a slightly different pitch. “I skate there all the time,” she said. “It’s keeping kids off the street.”

While many ice rinks are closing in Southern California--their owners saying there are more profitable uses for the property--the former manager of Iceland in Paramount says ice rinks can be profitable if they are properly managed.

Arnie Sagarsky, who left Iceland on May 21 to manage a rink in Nevada, said he tripled the Iceland’s gross in five years.

Pickwick’s Stavert has not commented on the effect of appeals by Nickerson and others, or whether he will back keep the promise that Nickerson reported.

But the answer may come today, when representatives of Pickwick management--presumably Stavert, his son Edward and Frank Silvio, Pickwick general manager--meet with Robert R. (Bud) Ovrom, Burbank’s city manager.

“I asked for the meeting before I left on vacation,” Ovrom said. “The City Council and I are very interested in the whole notion of commercial recreation, not just the ice rink. That kind of thing--skating rinks, bowling alleys, etc.--is a vital part of the community mix and it seems to be vanishing.”

“The Staverts are definitely having second thoughts,” said John Halebian, chairman of Save the Ice Committee. “They’ve had a contractor in to look at the roof again--repairing it would be one of the major expense items.”

Gino Vella of Pasadena, vice chairman of the committee, said he, Halebian and Margarita Aedo, vice president of the L.A. Figure Skating Club, met with Pickwick management Tuesday and he came away with “a very positive feeling about keeping the rink open.”

The three spoke with Ed Stavert, Silvio and Cary Adams, the rink manager. “They said in essence,” Vella related, “that it all depends on what happens at the meeting today. What that means is they want to see what the city will do for them.”

Last Saturday the Save the Ice committee held a rally in Burbank that was attended by skating stars concerned about Pickwick’s fate, including Tiffany Chin and Tai Babilonia, as well as by actors Chad Everett, whose daughter skates, and Dave Coulier, who plays hockey as a hobby.

Earlier, at a statewide board meeting of the California Amateur Hockey Assn., a committee was formed to study ways to underwrite development of new rinks. Vella, association president, said the committee is a permanent, long-term project.

Burgeoning interest in organized skating programs and a succession of rink closures in Southern California has resulted in hot competition for ice time. In fact, the size of Pickwick’s ice area and its seating capacity for spectators makes it the only rink left in the northern part of Los Angeles County that can play host to qualifying competition for regional and national figure skating championships.

“We’ll have to travel a long way to get to anything like it,” said Mary Roof, a past president of the Los Angeles Figure Skating Club. “We’ve produced a lot of champions at Pickwick. The ‘Fabulous Forties,’ a revue that skates to the music of the 1940s, won national titles three times.”

Ice Castle, a facility near Lake Arrowhead in San Bernardino County, can seat 1,000 for its annual benefit show, but owners Carol and Walter Probst have decided their niche is training. The only Southland facility with two ice surfaces, Ice Castle has accommodations for serious skaters from all over the world who come for extended stays to take advantage of the big-name instructors, mile-high altitude and freedom from distractions.

The Probsts built their first rink in the village center at Blue Jay and later opened another on the outskirts next to a dormitory and cottages. They also acquired a lodge for food service and meetings. Both ice surfaces are 85 by 185 feet. They are planning a building in which to offer off-ice dance instruction for figure skaters.

The head instructor is Robin Cousins, a former Olympic gold medalist from Britain. Also on the staff are Irina Rodnina, a Russian pairs skater who won three Olympic golds, 10 world championships and 11 European titles, and Frank Carroll, three-time U.S. champion who has coached many Olympic contestants.

“It’s all a labor of love,” said Carol Probst, a former Ice Follies star who moved to the Arrowhead area to retire. “We haven’t turned a profit yet. We have developed recreational and hockey programs, but I think getting into the black will depend on our specialty, advanced instruction for figure skaters.”

Pickwick has an 85-by-200-foot ice surface and seating for 2,000, making it the area’s biggest facility next to the Sports Arena. “Hockey participation has really grown,” Adams said. “In the ‘70s we had virtually no adult hockey. Now we’re running 1,500 players through here every week.”

Brad Berman, a principal in the California Senior Hockey League, said he had 400 players three years ago; now there are 800.

“The rinks are making money,” he said. “The Pickwick people just aren’t interested in the skating operation, so they don’t want to keep it repaired. Our Memorial Day tournament was literally rained out; the roof leaked so bad we had to call it off. The owners are more interested in expanding their banquet activities.”

Despite the demand for ice time, rinks have closed in Santa Monica, West Covina, Brea, Topanga Plaza, Tarzana and Santa Barbara. There is talk of closing the rink at Laurel Plaza in North Hollywood as part of a mall expansion program.

Joan Kradin of Forest Development Co. said present plans at the North Hollywood mall call for demolishing the one-story structure next to the May Co. to make room for a larger structure that would house three anchor stores and have space for movie theaters.

“The skating rink now located in the mall is not included in current plans, but we have talked to people concerned about it and are exploring options,” she said. “We’re still working on an environmental impact report, so the mall won’t come down for years.”

Rumors have circulated that even the Culver City Ice Rink is doomed, although it is used for practice by the Los Angeles Kings and the building belongs to former Kings owner Jerry Buss. The structure sits on leased land, however, whose owners are reportedly looking at other uses.

Jim Fox, a former Kings player working in the club’s public relations department, said that the team is considering a new rink and that it sought his opinion on designs a few months ago, but he has heard nothing since.

Rob Moore, the Kings’ director of administration, said: “We’re not initiating anything at present. Some persons have approached us, and we’re always open to suggestions about new rinks--we’d love to have as many as possible. We’d support hockey in any form; the future of our franchise depends on increasing the Southland’s understanding of the game.”

Efforts to open new rinks have been stalled or stymied by a combination of factors, including land cost and availability, building costs, zoning and homeowner opposition.

All those obstacles seemed to have been hurdled at San Dimas, where a redevelopment site was obtained for a rink and office buildings, and the objections of neighbors were resolved.

Bea Gallant, who formerly managed the West Covina rink, has agreed to sign a 30-year lease on the new one, but got so depressed at delays in the project “I opened a new business to take my mind off it. I have things for the rink stored all over and told people I’d take them back in six months. It’s gonna be years.”

Although ground breaking repeatedly has been postponed, Monrovia developer Fred Bowden said: “We’re moving ahead slowly. Most small cities send all their stuff to the county, and it’s in plan check with county planning now. They move at their own pace. Financing will be firmed up once we have plans.”

Berman is working on a new rink with two others, Larry Bruyere and a silent partner, and they have conducted an extensive search for a site. “We’re looking at one now in the Saugus area,” Bruyere said, “in the new city of Santa Clarita. There’s an existing building that could accommodate a rink without much renovation. I think we could be operating there in eight or nine months. The owners like our project, and we expect estimates this week from a couple of rink builders.

“I hope Pickwick doesn’t close; I see our rink as a nice networking project with theirs.”

Even before he heard of the Pickwick closure, Berman had made plans to expand the senior hockey league to Nevada. He has already scheduled some major tournaments at a new 85-by-200-foot ice surface with seating for 3,000 under construction in the Las Vegas area.

Bruyere said the league will include youth hockey for the first time when it expands to Nevada and the entire program will be announced at the Sahara in August.

The new manager for the Nevada rink--part of a hotel-casino-recreation complex in Painted Desert--is Sagarsky, formerly of the Iceland in Paramount. Contradicting the assertion that ice rinks don’t pay, Sagarsky said he tripled the gross at Paramount in five years.

“I came there without any experience in ice arenas, but I knew a lot about promotion, advertising and positive attitudes,” he said.

“When I took over, Paramount opened at 6:30 a.m., closed from 11 to 2 and closed for the day at 7:30 p.m. The gross was $300,000 a year. Five years later we were open from 5 in the morning until 2 the next morning, with no dark time in between. The gross had climbed to almost $1 million.”

He attributes the rink’s success to aggressive promotion and the elimination of negative attitudes among Paramount personnel.

“I only changed 10% of the staff, but I let the rest of them know I didn’t want to hear another discouraging word,” he said. “I set up promotions with the schools, got a new director for the skating school, installed a hockey program--even offered free ice time to little kids.”

Sagarsky said 50% of the ice time is already sold at the Nevada rink, scheduled to open Nov. 1, “and that’s the hard part. Selling the rest will be easy. There’s a substantial figure-skating group here, which used the former rink at Henderson (Nev.), but I think hockey will be our bread and butter. I told the owners the rink will not run in the red--ever.”

Another group considering a new rink in the western San Fernando Valley is headed by Sean McGillivray, who operates the Conejo Valley Ice Skating Center. He headed a successful effort to stave off closure of Conejo, but is convinced that ice rinks are not money-making enterprises and is attempting to establish one on a nonprofit basis.

“We hope to interest a well-known institution in supporting the venture,” he said. “Rinks often have municipal support in Canada and back East, where they recognize the recreational value to the community.”