Above: A group of young skaters work on their skating skills at Reno Ice.
By Troy Schwindt
It’s been almost eight years since the Vegas Golden Knights brought the excitement of ice skating to the state of Nevada. The second newest franchise in the NHL (founded in 2017), the team has created a frenzy in Las Vegas, with thousands of children and adults learning how to skate and becoming fans of the sport.
About a seven-hour drive up Highway 95 N., near the California border, there’s another Nevada gaming city with a vibrant ice skating community that’s on the brink of its own craze. Reno Ice — The Jennifer M. O’Neal Ice Arena in Reno — is bursting at the seams with figure skating and hockey programs.
The facility, located on the south side of Reno, is just five years old and features one NHL-sized rink that’s open from 5 a.m. until 11 p.m., seven days a week. Two other seasonal rinks are in the vicinity. Reno is about 30 minutes north of Nevada’s capital of Carson City.
“It’s a community rink — nonprofit,” Reno Ice Skating Director Joanie Malarchuk said. “We just try to make things affordable for all the kids. Nobody is in it to become a millionaire. We have hockey programs, figure skating programs, power-skating classes. We have an adult [hockey] league here. We have so many adult league teams that each team every so often must take a break from practicing or playing, because we don’t have the ice time.”
The Learn to Skate USA program has grown from 300 in the rink’s first year to more than 1,000 today. More than 1,000 take part in the Learn to Play hockey program.
“We are squeezing things in to make our programs work,” Malarchuk said. “We are running two programs on the ice at the same time.
“Our Learn to Play program is sponsored by the Vegas Knights. They don’t even practice full ice; they have to practice on sections of the ice to get them all on. We started a figure skating academy a little under a year ago and it’s just growing. We don’t have enough ice time to do everything we want, so we are doing the best we can with what we have.”
Rink organizers have had to turn away speed skaters, curlers and broomball players.
Being able to accommodate this growth remains the primary priority of the Greater Reno Community Ice Skating Association board of directors and other advocates.
The first phase of the project ($9.5 million) was made possible through donations, including a $2 million start-up by the rink’s namesake, the late Jennifer M. O’Neal and her family.
Phase two includes a second sheet of ice, a second set of locker rooms, bleachers, a parking lot and the completion of the mezzanine. Donations, Malarchuk said, started coming in right after completion of the first phase and remain fluid today, although she doesn’t have a timeline when construction may begin.
“We could do it in the next couple of months, we could do it in the next couple of years; it just depends,” she said.
Cameron Sorenson, a founding board member and interim general manager of the Greater Reno Community Ice Skating Association, said Reno has always been ripe to support a multi-sheet facility.
“The market has been underserved, and I used to tell my friends that Reno was the hockey black hole of North America, because we are the biggest city in the country without an ice rink,” Sorenson said. “… So that was our dream even before the twinkle in the eye of the Vegas Knights. But obviously with the success of the Knights, with them winning the [Stanley] Cup, the interest in ice sports has just exploded. There’s strong momentum in all of Nevada. We’ve been riding that wave. Since the rink opened, we’ve been at full capacity.”
To get to the finish line with the project, the board recently named its assistant general manager its chief fundraiser. It has also made inroads with some of the community’s foundations.
“They’ve been kind of sticking their toe in the water in terms of funding some programs with us and they want to make sure we are legit before they jump in the pool maybe in a bigger way,” Sorenson said.
Creating even more buzz for ice sports in Reno was the recent announcement of the ground-breaking planned on a $1 billion arena/entertainment district project; it includes a community ice rink on the property.
Billionaire Alex Meruelo, who owns the Grand Sierra Resort and Casino in the heart of Reno, has secured the financing to begin this mammoth project. Meruelo owns an American Hockey League team in Tucson, Arizona, and there’s discussion about him bringing it or another AHL team to the new venue.
There have been no official discussions between Meruelo’s group and Reno Ice officials regarding a possible collaboration.
“It doesn’t change our course and our tact,” Sorenson said. “We know the area needs another rink. We have no say or control over what’s going to happen over there, so we are just staying in our own lane and focus on what we can control and that’s building great figure skating and ice hockey programs that the community is proud of and hopefully that’s going to come back to us in continued support from the community and donations that will allow us to go forward with the second rink.”
While rink organizers continue fundraising efforts, Reno Ice is not only booming, its developing quality skaters.
Some of those who took Learn to Skate or Learn to Play lessons five years ago are now competing at high levels.
“We have one girl, her name is Madi; she was in our Learn to Skate USA classes from the time we opened and went on to play for Reno Ice. The Vegas Junior Golden Knights provided plenty of ice time and led to success that culminated in Madi playing in the USA Hockey Girls 14U Tier II National Championship in 2024. The next year, the team won back-to-back Pacific Girls Hockey League championships and missed the opportunity to return to nationals by one goal.
“There’s a great vibe. We’ve seen the kids go from putting around on the ice to playing on hockey travel teams; we are creating a high school hockey team now. The kids just love it.”
Local adults are also lining up to play hockey and figure skate. The rink’s Ice Breakers league and clinic is always full and has a wait list every season.
“We are trying to start a synchronized program for some of the adults,” Malarchuk said. “We have one adult who started skating when the rink opened and she just won the bronze medal at U.S. Adult nationals.”
Earlier this year, the rink hosted its first Excel Series event.
Helping Malarchuk build the figure skating program at Reno Ice is a talented group of coaches.
“My goal now is to make our figure skating program a strong competitive training center,” Malarchuk said. “I came from training with John Nicks and a great group of coaches when I skated out of Santa Monica, California, when Tai and Randy were there, Christopher Bowman and many other well-known skaters. Those are my roots with skating, so that’s my goal is to have this rink be similar.
“We are a great team; we all work well together. We are all different-level coaches, but we all complement each other. We all mentor each other and help each other. My goal is to bring more coaches in who are like-minded and build our program so one day we have someone make it to nationals or even beyond that.”
Complementing the hockey program, Malarchuk said, is something she’s also passionate about because of her personal connection to the sport.
She’s married to Clint Malarchuk, who played goalie in the NHL for 15 seasons. He’s remembered unfortunately for having his neck cut by a player’s skate during a 1989 game as a member of the Buffalo Sabres. He received medical treatment and recovered from the injury.
“We [she and hockey director Jackson Baughman] work well together on building both of our programs,” Malarchuk said. “So if they have some hockey players who need skating lessons, we allow them on our freestyle sessions as long as they don’t wear full hockey gear. That helps keep our freestyles a little busier, so we can advocate to keep the ice time.”
In addition to the adult hockey leagues, there are area competitive teams — Tahoe Knight Monsters (an affiliate of the Vegas Knights) practice on occasion at Reno Ice, while the Ice Raiders (a Senior A travel men’s team) practice and play at Reno Ice.
“We’ve got a Christmas show we do every year,” Malarchuk added. “The kids look forward to that. We are trying to make it where you can go either the competitive route or you can go more of the showcase route, or we’ve got kids who just want to learn to skate better and they are not sure what they want to do. Hopefully someday we’d like to host a sectional or even a national event.
Sorenson believes in his heart that will happen, because the demand is there.
“[After the first phase] I’ve learned patience in fundraising,” Sorenson said. “We are focused on executing and delivering to the community great programs and helping families raise great human beings; that’s what it’s about, and team sports and the discipline and hard work that’s required to master a sport are things that will benefit these children the rest of their lives.”
The board, Sorenson said, is always looking for like-minded people who want to help as volunteers or to fundraise.
“I’ve also learned it’s one phone call away from happening,” Sorenson said. “A major donor can change the game and change the equation and change the timing.”
To learn more about the Reno Ice project, or to donate, go to Renoice.com and click on Community.
