By Kim Navarro
When Charles Schulz built the Redwood Empire Ice Arena in 1969, he built more than just an ice rink. Charles Schulz, aka “Sparky,” built a place for people to come together and enjoy skating, hot chocolate, birthday parties, hockey tournaments and world-class performances.
There already existed a local ice rink when Schulz and his family moved to Santa Rosa, California, from Minnesota. The Santa Rosa Ice Arena was run by brothers Skippy and Meryl Baxter. If the name Skippy Baxter sounds familiar, that’s because Skippy Baxter is a World Figure Skating Hall of Fame inductee and was credited by “Ripley’s Believe It or Not”as the first skater to perform a triple Salchow.
When Skippy and Meryl’s rink ran into structural difficulties and was set to close, Sparky decided he would build a rink of his own and hire the Baxter brothers to run it.
Sparky’s then wife, Joyce, had a special vision for a new rink and gathered a talented team to bring the project to fruition. The task was to avoid building a cold warehouse looking ice rink and instead design a facility inspired by the Swiss Alps.
“Joyce was very proud of this building,” said Daniel Johnson, Snoopy’s Gallery & Gift Shop manager and Joyce and Sparky’s grandson. “It was a place where her children would grow up and a beautiful arena for the community.”
The result was the Redwood Empire Ice Arena, opened in 1969, an arena Sparky called “literally the world’s most beautiful ice rink.” Surrounded by tall redwood trees native to the area, both the interior and the exterior of the building resemble a Swiss Alpine village. As a child, I was convinced that the Peanuts gang, like Snoopy, Woodstock, Linus and Lucy, lived behind the doors of the Swiss cottages that overlooked the ice.
The arena soon became a center of activity outside of usual ice rink programming. From the early 1970s through the 1990s, the Redwood Empire Ice Arena presented television specials, comedy shows, musical concerts, Rollerblade camps and a show called “Extreme Wheels Live” starring skateboarder Tony Hawk and BMX biker Matt Hoffman.
In 1983 Sparky offered to host the first Women’s Tennis Classics Tournament. The tournament attracted many of the top women players of the 1970s, including Billie Jean King, and was held at the Redwood Empire Ice Arena for several years.
What started as professional summer ice shows led to the arena’s famous professional holiday shows, the first of which took place in December 1986 and was called “Snoopy’s Wonderful Magical Christmas.”
Sparky was involved in the production of these shows, which included the likes of world famous skaters Scott Hamilton, Robin Cousins, Toller Cranston, Dorothy Hamill as headliners over the years (though of course the biggest star of them all was always Snoopy!)
Today the Redwood Empire Ice Arena is more affectionately known as Snoopy’s Home Ice and continues to support a variety of events year round. This past year alone, it opened its doors to Scott Hamilton’s Sk8 to Elimin8 Cancer ice show, featuring Illia Malinin; Sonoma Clean Power’s Outdoor Holiday Variety Show, a free event for the community; the Senior World Hockey Tournament, a hockey tournament Sparky started in 1975; and Ice Dance International’s tour “Grace,” starring former World champion Gabriella Papadakis.
Other organizations calling the arena home include Santa Rosa Growlers Hockey, Redwood Ice Theatre Company, Santa Rosa Junior College Hockey, Santa Rosa Flyers Hockey, Santa Rosa Figure Skating Club, Guns N’ Hoses Hockey, Vintage Figures and Snoopy’s Adult Hockey League.
If you zoom in on any typical Saturday, you’ll see early morning hockey practice, followed by freestyle sessions, Snoopy’s Skating School group lessons, a public session, multiple birthday parties, and perhaps, a Growlers senior A game, followed by private ice rental until late in the night. And if you happen to catch the last day of Snoopy’s Skating School during the end-of-session celebration, you’ll likely see Snoopy or Woodstock joining in on the fun.
There is so much happening that on a recent Saturday, Jeannie Schulz popped into the arena offices and asked General Manager Tamara Stanley, “What’s going on today? There are so many people!” to which Tamara laughed, “It’s just a normal Saturday.”
And that’s just one part of the campus. Snoopy’s Home Ice sits in between Snoopy’s Gallery and Gift Shop which offers a wide range of Peanuts products for sale and the Charles M. Schulz Museum & Research Center, which features the largest collection of original Peanuts comic strips. Not to mention that within the arena doors, visitors can enjoy one of the six different types of hot chocolate offered at The Warm Puppy Cafe.
The backdrop for all this bustling activity on the campus is the arena’s history. You’ll find signatures of all the famous skaters that came through the arena in the cement of the Walk of Fame outside. Stroll through the upstairs offices and you’ll find photos of Skippy Baxter, Kristi Yamaguchi, Billie Jean King and Tony Hawk. Duck into the upstairs dance room and find a larger-than-life photo of Sparky exercising in that exact room.
It’s this mix of the magical past and the flourishing present that continues to draw people to Snoopy’s Home Ice.
“There is a different energy here,” Johnson said. “Between the hand-painted murals, the architecture, which was ahead of its time, and the inviting Warm Puppy Cafe, it’s unlike any other ice rink.”
“Snoopy's is more than an ice arena, it is a historical gem,” Stanley added. “It is not hard to see why our ice arena was Sparky’s favorite place and we are truly lucky to call it our home.”
Kim Navarro is a two-time U.S. bronze medalist in ice dance. She started skating at the age of 3 at Snoopy’s Home Ice. Not long after, at the age of 10, she made her debut in the Charles M. Schulz professional Christmas show and had the unique opportunity to perform in these professional shows for many years to follow.
