‘The abandoned ice hockey rink (in summer)’

Abandoned and/or disused recreational facilities have a deep melancholy. Their usage long since passed, the screams and shouts have long ago faded and they often stand in lonely remembrance of good times and lives that have now disappeared, or at least changed forever, moved on.

Amusement parks with their fading rides, cracked fibreglass animals suspended in slow decline; boarded up boardwalks, ice cream shops shuttered forever against the bloody sea wind;  old sporting amenities, the arena of minor legendary feats remembered by maybe only one person on earth, their paint peeling and with weeds now ruling the roost.

One such of the latter is an old ice hockey rink near Hämeenkyrö in Finland, in the grounds of what used to be a school, and which is now the Arteles Arts Center. A further tone of poignancy is provided by the fact that, in summer, an abandoned ice hockey rink seems even more redundant.

Some images of that… (Click on images for larger versions)