Frigid temperatures and blowing wind weren’t enough to stop Dan Osterud. He skates at the Red Arrow Park Slice of Ice most lunch breaks.
“It’s just nice to get away from everything in the middle of the day. To get out, to move around, it sort of clears my mind and stretches my body and it’s just fun,” he says. “I’m always in a better mood after I’ve been skating.”
Dan says he jumped into this hobby about 15 years ago after he and his wife went skating for a birthday.
“I hadn’t been skating since I was a kid and it was a lot of fun. And a couple of days later, I went to a thrift store and there was a pile of skates to choose from and I just started coming,” Dan recalls.
He’s upgraded his boots since then, and even took a few lessons to learn some tricks.
“Everything else I’ve taught myself or just, like, tips from somebody else. ‘Hey, how do you do this?’ And mostly it’s just coming consistently and being willing to try new things,” Dan says.
And he says that’s the true trick – just being willing to try.
“I fell a lot when I first started doing this. You fall and you get up and you fall and you get up, and after a while you just get out there and you don’t fall as much,” Dan says.
He knows he doesn’t look like your typical figure skater, but it doesn’t matter.
“Anybody can come out and do this,” Dan says. “I’m not trying to be a figure skater, I’m just a guy who is getting out and dancing on the ice. I’m not competing, I’m not doing any of the super technical stuff, I’m just having a lot of fun.”
And he says if that sparks joy for others, all the better.
“I had someone tell me once, they work in one of the tall buildings and they said, ‘oh yeah, our break room is right there and I try to take lunch when you’re there so I can watch you skating down on the rink,’” Dan says. “It’s actually kind of nice!”
