Skaters get a new place to hone their skills

By Mo Cranker on October 22, 2018.

mcranker@medicinehatnews.com @MHNmocranker

Skateboarders in the city have a new place to perfect their tricks.

The Medicine Hat Skateboard Association, The Summit and the City of Medicine Hat unveiled the city’s first integrated skate spot near Saamis Rotary Park Saturday — giving local skaters another place to do their thing.

“It’s exciting that we were able to get this done this year — the weather made us question if it was going to happen,” said Summit president Josh Swanson. “It’s essentially a small skatable area somewhere out in the street that’s not at a formal skateboard park.

“Places near parks, paths, downtown — those are all really popular places for spots like this.”

The skate spot features a flat bar, a 28-foot flat ledge and a couple pads with gaps and manual spots — the pads give skaters easy access to the spot from the park’s trail.

“This is a great alternative to the skatepark,” said Swanson. “People can come here to practice their tricks or do some filming of their tricks.

“The skatepark we have in the city is very central and that’s great — for a lot of sub-communities, it’s not always easy to make it their or to take your kids there.

“The idea is to have these set up all over the city so it’s easier to skateboard on a day-to-day basis.”

Swanson says this project cost more than $30,000 to put together and that the group will hopefully get a couple more done next year.

“It only happened this year because of some grants and some great donations — the weather also allowed us to get this done,” he said. “We don’t know for sure where the next one will go but we just want all of the little sub-communities around the city to get one.”

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