The State of Skate - 2022
2022 has been a pretty great year for me. I hit 49 new skateparks,(EDIT- got to a private park making 50 for the year) hitting my 500th skatepark, House of Vans - Toronto Pop-up, in the process.
At one point I thought I'd been to all the outdoor public skateparks in South West Ontario. Then I found out that the new Mold-master skatepark in Georgetown had opened. So I bee-lined there from Strathroy (where I was checking out the build in progress). Little did I know a park I had hit in MAY, Corunna, had been completely replaced.
Corunna & Mold-master were not the only skateparks that were replaced this year. The Harrow and Essex skateparks got new ramps. Tecumseh Skatepark in Sarnia is currently under construction, replacing their metal park with concrete and Amherstburg has opened a metal park (phase 1 of 3(pumptrack and concrete bowl)).
I also had a bunch of strike outs in the last 2 years. On the 80 Skatepark run, Dunbat was closed and Sheldon Skate Spot in Burlington was just gone. I went out to find parks in Sterling, Harwood, Hastings, Paisley and Millbrook only to come up empty.
7 years of advocacy saw the first new concrete in Pickering in over 20 years come to my neighbourhood. The West Shore Skate Spot is amazing and extremely well loved and used.
After seeing the work that went into the West Shore Skate Spot and chatting with the crew, I learned that the need for skatepark builders is extremely high. Projects are popping up all over Ontario and towns are asking for accelerated timelines. This has led to some projects having few bidders and some companies getting more work. It's good but comes with some issues.
I created a listing of all the skatepark companies that have projects/ramps in Ontario and broke down Their Best & Worst projects. It's an interesting compare and contrast.
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