Bridgewater, Va. – The contract that allows students to ice skate for free at Generations Park has been extended through March, allowing students to skate until the ice rink closes for the season.

The three-year contract between Bridgewater College and the Town of Bridgewater was set to expire on Dec. 31, 2020. 

In addition to free ice skating, this contract allows students to use the Sandy Bottom Park Mini-Golf and Par-3 courses, the Will Tennis Center facilities and certain movie showings at the Sipe Center for free. 

Parks Coordinator Tess Croy spoke on the decision to extend, rather than renew, the contract. 

“We spoke with Bridgewater College, and due to the fact that you are not at full capacity with your students, and not knowing how many students would actually use the facilities, and if everyone was going to be sent home again, or really what the outcome of Covid would be at this point, we just extended it until we could see a little bit more of what life was going to be for everyone,” said Croy. 

Currently, the Will Tennis Center is closed due to Covid, the Sipe Center is only open for private party rentals and Sandy Bottom Park is closed for the season. 

Since Sandy Bottom Park will not reopen until April, the current contract extension only covers ice skating. 

Assistant Dean of Students Whitney Smith addressed the question of the contract’s future after March. 

“It’s a lot of what’s happening in the world of Covid at that point and what’s open,” said Smith. “We’ll be using the month of March, kind of that in-between, to figure out what our next contract looks like and how we’re doing that with the town. 

“I think we’ll definitely be looking at how we can best utilize the Bridgewater resources. There might be another grandfather period of what does it look like for the rest of spring depending on where we are, and then that will give us more time to figure out what would it look like beginning next fall,” said Smith. 

Students can visit the Generations Park website to see what time slots still have tickets available. To skate for free, students will have to present their student IDs in person at Generations Park. 

Croy encourages students to plan ahead and pick up their tickets early, since time slots, limited to 27 people per session, often fill up days ahead of time.  

CEAT held their first Skate Night on Jan. 26, and will host their second on Jan. 30., as well as two more planned for Feb. 13 and Feb. 22. In order to attend one of the Skate Nights, students should RSVP with CEAT beforehand.